SunSirs: China Leads the World in Reserves of 14 Mineral Types

According to the Economic Daily, the Ministry of Natural Resources recently held a press conference stating that China’s mineral reserves have grown significantly, further strengthening the country’s resource base. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s reserves of 14 mineral types—including rare earths, tungsten, tin, molybdenum, antimony, gallium, germanium, indium, fluorite and graphite—will rank first in the world; whilst reserves of nine other minerals—including coal, iron, manganese, titanium, lithium, zinc, phosphorus and magnesite—rank among the top four globally.

Xiong Zili, Director-General of the Department of Geological Exploration Management at the Ministry of Natural Resources, stated that the substantial growth in resource reserves stems directly from the systematic exploration and reserve expansion efforts targeting scarce and strategically advantageous minerals under the Mineral Exploration Breakthrough Strategy, laying a solid foundation for resource self-reliance and control.

Data shows that China’s scale of mineral product production and smelting and processing remains firmly in first place globally, with its dominant position in the industrial chain continuing to be consolidated. By 2025, China’s production of 17 mineral types—including coal, vanadium, titanium, zinc, rare earths, tungsten, tin, molybdenum, antimony, gallium, indium, gold, tellurium, phosphorus, fluorite and graphite will rank first in the world, with 11 of these—including rare earths, tungsten, antimony, gallium, indium and tellurium—accounting for over 50% of global output. China’s strengths are even more pronounced in the smelting and processing sector. The country accounts for 99% of global manganese smelting products, 94% of rare earth smelting products, 60% of aluminium, 53% of steel and 47% of copper. China ranks first in the world for the production of over 30 types of metallurgical products, with 17 of these accounting for approximately 50% of global output.

Xiong Zili noted that this signifies China is not only a major producer of mineral resources but also a dominant supplier and key leader in the global smelting and processing industry, ensuring the stability of China’s industrial chains and effectively promoting the development of emerging industries.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China discovered 398 new large and medium-sized strategic mineral deposits (including oil and gas fields), of which 225 were large and medium-sized oil and gas fields. Newly proven geological reserves of oil and gas maintained high growth, whilst exploration for bulk minerals such as copper, gold and potash achieved historic breakthroughs. while exploration for strategic emerging minerals such as lithium, helium and high-purity quartz has achieved leapfrog development. The country’s capacity for self-sufficiency in resource security has been significantly enhanced, providing strong support for the construction and consolidation of 198 energy and resource bases, and markedly elevating China’s standing and competitiveness within the global industrial division of labor.

The scale of the mining economy and its capacity to drive employment have continued to grow, providing strong support for national economic and social development. Currently, there are 12,600 prospecting licenses and 30,400 mining licenses nationwide. With 55,000 mining enterprises and 834,000 smelting and processing enterprises, the mining sector and its associated industries have become vital pillars of regional economic development and employment.

The level of basic geological survey work has steadily improved, providing greater scope for mineral exploration in commercial projects. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, 210,000 square kilometers of 1:50,000-scale regional geological surveys were completed on land, increasing coverage to 48.6%; 240,000 square kilometers of 1:50,000-scale mineral geological surveys were completed, raising coverage of key mineralization belts to 59.2%. High-yield commercial oil flows have been discovered in the Sanmenxia Basin in Henan, setting an example for oil and gas exploration in small and medium-sized basins across the country. The western Hubei region has achieved a breakthrough in commercial unconventional gas flows, opening up new stratigraphic sequence and types of unconventional gas, and effectively extending shale gas exploration from the Sichuan Basin to the western Hubei region. Significant progress has been made in the surveys of the large-scale ion-adsorption-type rare earth deposit in Honghe, Yunnan, and the Sartohai chromite deposit in Xinjiang.

It is understood that in recent years, China has deepened reforms to the mineral resource management system to stimulate market vitality. The revision of the Mineral Resources Law has been completed, establishing a comprehensive and systematic security assurance system for mineral resources. The competitive transfer of mining rights has been fully implemented, giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation whilst better utilizing the government’s role. Efforts have been made to actively expand the sources of exploration blocks and increase the issuance of exploration rights, with a cumulative total of 1,868 exploration rights for strategic minerals granted—a figure that has repeatedly set new records. By fostering a favorable policy environment and harnessing the benefits of institutional reforms, the government has encouraged and supported mining rights holders to increase reserves and boost production. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, cumulative investment in mineral exploration nationwide exceeded RMB billion, representing a 29.3% increase compared to the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Of this, social capital accounted for over 85%, reflecting a significant rise in the enthusiasm of private investors for mineral exploration initiatives.

At the same time, China’s capacity for scientific and technological innovation and the modernization of its equipment have taken a quantum leap, helping to advance geological prospecting to a higher standard whilst ensuring high-level ecological and environmental protection. Major national science and technology projects, such as the ‘Deep Earth’ and ‘Development and Utilization of Strategic Mineral Resources’ initiatives, have been coordinated to tackle key challenges, yielding a series of significant advances in areas including the production of high-purity materials, the efficient utilization of low-grade resources, and the localization of deep ore bodies. Innovative new theories on mineralization, such as “terrestrial volcanic porphyry-shallow-seated low-temperature copper-gold deposits” and “multi-cycle deep-cycle endogenous-exogenous integrated lithium deposits”, have guided breakthroughs in mineral exploration for copper deposits on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and lithium deposits in western Sichuan. For deep coalbed methane resources, a technical system for precise prediction of deep reservoirs and efficient fracturing and production techniques has been established, making deep coalbed methane a new growth driver in the natural gas sector. China’s first independently designed and built ocean-going drilling vessel, the ‘Dream’, was officially commissioned, and the first well to exceed 10,000 meters in depth, the Taka 1 well, was successfully completed.

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