The Sanmenxia Basin has a daily output of 17 cubic meters of high-yield industrial oil flow, the northern part of the Qaidam Basin has a daily output of 8586 cubic meters of potassium bearing deep brine, the Xiling Gold Mine in Laizhou, Shandong Province has increased its gold reserves by nearly 200 tons, the Duolong and Xiongcun villages in Xizang have increased their copper resources by more than 24 million tons, the West Kunlun region in Xinjiang has discovered 1.8 million tons of lithium oxide resources, and the Zhaotong Town, Yunnan Province has increased its phosphorus ore resources by 2.76 billion tons

The 2023 National Natural Resources Work Conference held on January 11, 2023 proposed to comprehensively launch a new round of strategic mineral domestic exploration and development, as well as increase reserves and production, focusing on strengthening domestic exploration and development of important energy and mineral resources. A new round of breakthrough strategic action in mineral exploration has begun. Now, the operation has been carried out for over a year, and significant breakthroughs have been made in mineral exploration in multiple places and fields.

Continuously and deeply carry out breakthrough strategic actions in mineral exploration

The security guarantee of mineral resource supply is an important foundation for national economic security and a key support for building a modern industrial system.

In 2023, a new round of breakthrough mining strategy actions will begin. In the first half of 2023, 242 new exploration rights were established nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 25.4%, and major breakthroughs were successively made in mineral exploration such as the Laizhou gold mine in Shandong and the Zhaotong phosphate mine in Yunnan.

The 2024 National Conference on Natural Resources held in January of this year identified eight key tasks for the natural resources system, including continuing to deepen a new round of strategic breakthroughs in mineral exploration.

On February 22nd, the China Geological Survey of the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that a new mineral has been discovered in a rare metal deposit in Jiangxi, China. It has been officially approved by the International Mineral Society and named cerium tantalum pyroxene. Tantalum, as an important rare metal element, has significant application value in the fields of high-end capacitors and aerospace materials. The discovery of new minerals has also promoted research on tantalum ore exploration and mineralization.

On February 1st, the Xi‘an Mineral Resources Survey Center of the China Geological Survey discovered one antimony mineralization alteration zone and delineated one antimony ore body in the Daluorigou area of Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, making new progress in mineral exploration.

Since the beginning of this year, China has continuously launched a new round of breakthrough strategic actions in mineral exploration, and has achieved good results in many fields.

Strengthen the supply of mineral resource exploration and development policies

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Natural Resources stated that in order to further promote a new round of breakthrough mining strategies, the department will first clear up and remove obstacles at the policy level.

In terms of strengthening support for the supply of policies for mineral resource exploration and development, the first is to improve the management system for the collection of mining rights transfer profits. Changing the collection method from one-time collection to annual collection based on sales revenue during mining production not only protects the national ownership rights of mineral resources, but also effectively reduces the burden on enterprises. The second is to improve the registration and management of mineral resource exploration and mining. Encourage the implementation of comprehensive exploration of mineral resources. Revitalize the secondary market for exploration rights, lift restrictions on the transfer period of exploration rights obtained through bidding, auction, and listing, and allow the circulation of exploration rights. Simplify the application requirements and approval process for mining rights registration, and improve approval efficiency. The third is to allow the transfer of mining rights to the same entity through agreements for interstitial resources, deep resources, etc; Adjusting the proportion of deduction area for the continuation of exploration rights, refining the integrated system of oil and gas exploration and production, extending the retention period of exploration rights, and improving the competitive transfer of mining rights, to promote the exploration and development of mineral resources.

In addition, the central and local governments have also increased their financial support to safeguard the exploration and development of mineral resources. For example, the budget for geological exploration projects in Xinjiang in 2024 has been increased from 150 million yuan to 500 million yuan, and 1.8 billion yuan has been invested to establish a risk exploration fund; In 2023, Hunan Province will integrate financial and corporate funds of 2 billion yuan to establish a geological exploration fund, which will drive resource exploration and development through fund construction and industrial development through resource exploration and development

Strengthen the support of technology leading talents

The new round of strategic breakthroughs in mineral exploration requires strengthening the leading role of technological innovation. For over a year, in response to the low grade, deep burial, and high difficulty in selecting and refining mineral resources in China, natural resources departments at all levels have continued to demand resources and efficiency from science and technology. Solidly promote major projects in deep land and mineral resources, accelerate the deployment of the first batch of approved projects, mobilize various innovative forces to carry out "large-scale combat"; Establishing national key laboratories, ministerial key laboratories, and innovation centers in the field of geological construction and strengthening; Actively promote the establishment of major scientific research projects in the natural resource system, and organize scientific and technological breakthroughs throughout the entire chain of mineral exploration and development.

In January of this year, the Institute of Mineral Resources of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences discovered a gold deposit in the Huodong Gold Mine in Inner Mongolia through comprehensive information three-dimensional positioning prediction of the selected deep target area, which was verified by enterprise drilling. The project team applies big data science to research new paradigm thinking and identifies target areas through new mining work models. Mining enterprises carry out drilling verification to discover gold deposits, and the prospecting effect is significant.

In recent years, due to the decreasing number of mineral projects, there has been a serious loss of technical personnel engaged in mineral exploration, and a shortage of geological exploration talents, which has to some extent constrained the rapid advancement of breakthrough strategic actions in mineral exploration.

"We need to focus on the implementation of key tasks, make good use of existing talents, introduce scarce professional talents, increase the training and utilization of young talents, and establish a high-level talent team that combines old, middle, and young people, with reasonable levels and complete specialties, to provide talent team support for the implementation of a new round of breakthrough mining strategy." The relevant person in charge of the Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences said.

In May last year, the Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources issued a notice on the recommendation of high-level scientific and technological innovation talent projects (geological exploration direction), recommending and selecting a group of high-level scientific and technological innovation teams and talents for geological exploration direction. 63 scientific and technological innovation teams and 273 scientific and technological talents from across the country have been selected, providing a "new force" for the new round of breakthrough strategic action in mineral exploration.