Accomplishment Of Mission Of National Prospecting Breakthrough Strategy



Accomplishment Of Mission Of National Prospecting Breakthrough Strategy

It is known from Mineral Exploration Technology Guidance Center of Ministry of Natural Resources, up till now, the mission of national “358” prospecting breakthrough strategy was basically completed. There are 2008 newly discovered mines and plenty of super-large mineral deposits are rich in uranium, molybdenum, tungsten, gold, lead and zinc, manganese, graphite and lithium.

Our country has been implementing prospecting breakthrough strategy since 2011, which identifies three phased targets of “having big progress in 3 years, having big breakthrough in 5 years, reshaping mineral prospecting and developing pattern in 8 to 10 years”. Under the firm leadership of the Party Central Committee and the State Council since the implementation of strategy 8 years ago, Ministry of Natural Resources (the former being Ministry of Land and Resources), National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Finance closely work together to make promotion, local governments lay great emphasis and provide great support and mineral enterprises, geological exploration units and scientific research institutions actively participate. All related industries and departments are making steady efforts to fulfill Prospecting Breakthrough Strategy according to overall requirements for ecological progress and in the light of “Three adjustment and One marching”, harvesting plenty of important mineral species.

Uranium mineral exploration has made huge progress in basin including Erdos, Ili and Erenhot. Sandstone type uranium mineral reserves increases rapidly, especially after the discovery of world-class Daying uranium mine in Erdos.

The newly explored copper resource of South Tiegelong in Tibet is 11 million tons, becoming the first 10-million-ton-level copper ore deposit; in 2012 to 2014, great breakthroughs were also made in Red Mudslope mining area in South of Luodang copper in Lala Mining area, 333+334 copper resource increasing by 632200 tons.

Manganese ore increase mainly lies in manganese ore belt in Hunan, Guizhou, Guilin and Chongqing. Newly filed increased resource of package-exploration manganese ore zone in Songtao Tongren is 571 million tons. In particular, in 2018, in highland manganese ore, it was estimated that 333 and above manganese resource would be 160 million tons, which is now in filing process; Chongqing has made huge breakthroughs in deep area in Chengkou, with prospective manganese ore resource of 200 million tons; large-scale quality manganese-enriched ore was discovered in Maerkansu region in west Kunlung, Xinjiang.

The so far biggest high-grade lead zinc ore was discovered in flaming cloud region of Hotan, Xinjiang. It is identified that resource of lead zinc is more than 23 million tons, becoming 10-million-ton-level lead zinc base in west Kunlun. In recent years, lead zinc ores newly explored in Zhugongtang of Hezhang in Guizhou, Dongzhong of Fankou in Guangdong and other regions are all of large scale.

Prospecting programme has identified over 46 million tons of gold in deep area of gold mine in Jiaodong. It has become the third biggest gold ore concentration area in the world, probably the first 10000-ton-level base of gold resource in China; great achievements were also made in shallow covered area in East Anhui Province. This area may probably grow into a large-scale base of gold ore resource.

Advantageous ores like tungsten and molybdenum are further consolidated. The newly explored tungsten ores in Jiangxi Dahutang and Zhuxi renewed world records of tungsten ore reserves one after another. Three 2-million-ton-level molybdenum ores were newly discovered in succession in Shapinggou, Anhui, Caosiyao, Inner Mongolia and Chalukou, Heilongjiang.

In related to key ore resource prospecting, we discovered ultra-large crystalline graphite ore in Huangyangshan, Qitai County, Xinjiang, with estimated increased resource volume of 83.36 million tons. It is also estimated that overall prospective mineral volume will be exceeding 100 million tons, probably being a new development base of crystalline graphite ore; the biggest spodumene deposit in Asia was explored in west Sichuan Province, with accumulative 333+334 lithium oxide resource volume of over 4.5 million tons, including 2.86 million tons in Jiajika and 1.64 million tons in Ke’eryin. Providing strong resource basis for the construction of large-scale development base of rare-metal exploration in west Sichuan Province; great achievements were also made in lithium ore exploration in Dahongliutan, west Kunlun, Xinjiang and Weilasituo, Great Khingan.

According to information, the increase in resource from 2011 to 2018 (333 and above): coal of 451.7 billion tons, iron of 15.4 billion tons, manganese of 1.1 billion tons, copper of 31.53 million tons, bauxite of 1.5 billion tons, gold of 6952 tons, lead zinc of 107.59 million tons, nickel of 1790000 tons, tungsten of 5.41 million tons, molybdenum of 16.93 million tons, sylvite of 400 million tons and tin of 920000 tons. Increase status of newly brought up target minerals: lithium ore of 80000 tons, graphite of 135.15 million tons, titanium ore of 56.46 million tons, fluorite of 2324 tons and diatomite of 35.64 million tons.