Mining in China
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China Mining Overview
Mine Production Information
China’s mineral resource strategy takes into account the country’s relative lack of bulk mineral reserves. Consumption of many important mineral resources including:
Chromium • Cobalt • Copper • Iron Ore • Manganese • Nickel • Petroleum • Platinum • Potash
Exceed domestic production. However, China is also a world leader in the production of many minerals. While they maintain mine production and export quotas on many protected minerals, their export capacity is very large. Selected mineral information follows:
China cancelled their mine production quota of antimony in 2014, and production rose from 120,000 tons in 2013 to 125,000 tons in 2014. The export quota for antimony and antimony products was unchanged at 59,400 tons.
Many Chinese companies and refineries stockpiled imported bauxite and nickel in anticipation of Indonesia’s ban on mineral ore exports. Bauxite production in China itself rose from 46,000,000 tons to 47,000,000 tons, though China’s reserves are relatively limited at 830,000,000 tons.
China dominates the production of bismuth, accounting for 7,600 tons of the world’s 8,500 tons of supply in 2014. China’s dominance of cadmium production is not as strong but still leads the world at 7,300 tons out of 22,200 tons of world production. China’s cobalt mine production was relatively small at 7,200 tons in both 2013 and 2014, but they refined a leading amount of cobalt from imports. China is also a dominant producer and consumer of graphite. China produced 780,000 tons in 2014 that accounted for 67% of the world production of 1,170,000 tons.
Chinese mine production of copper rose slightly from 1,600,000 tons in 2013 to 1,620,000 tons in 2014. China’s copper reserves are 30,000,000 tons. Chinese production of feldspar was 3rd in the world at 2,100,000 tons in both 2013 and 2014. Chinese production of gypsum rose from 129,000,000 tons in 2013 to 132,000,000 tons in 2014.
Chinese production capacity of low-grade (99.99% pure) gallium has expanded at a rate exceeding global consumption in recent years, from 140 tons in 2010 to 550 tons in 2014, lowering prices.
China is the leading global consumer and producer of Germanium, having produced 120 tons in 2014, out of a global production of 165 tons.
China is the largest gold producer in the world, having produced 450 tons in 2014 compared to 430 tons in 2013. China produced 4,200 tons of silver in 2014, rising from 4,100 tons in 2013 and part of 26,100 tons of global production.
China’s production of crude iron ore rose slightly from 1,450,000,000 tons in 2013 to 1,500,000,000 tons in 2014. Other country statistics are usually given in terms of usable ore.
China produced 100,000,000 tons of nickel in 2014, growing from 95,000,000 tons in 2013. China is the largest lead producer in the world, increasing production in 2014 to 2,950,000 tons from 2,900,000 tons in 2013.
China produced 800,000 tons of magnesium metal in 2014, making up most of the world production of 907,000 tons. China’s production of manganese rose from 3,000 tons in 2013 to 3,200 tons in 2014. Molybdenum production fell slightly from 101,000 tons in 2013 to 100,000 tons in 2014, though China remained the leading world producer. China produced 100,000,000 tons of phosphate rock in 2014, enough to remain world leaders but a slight drop from 108,000,000 tons produced in 2013.
China produced 4,400,000 tons of potash in 2014, a rise from 4,300,000 tons produced in 2013.
China dominates rare earth metal mining. In both 2013 and 2014, China produced 95,000 tons of the 110,000 tons of world rare earth metal production. Consumption of rare earths is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate over 5% between 2014 and 2020. China’s rare earth expert quotas were 31,000 tons in 2014. This includes 27,3833 tons for light rare earths and 3,617 tons for heavy rare earths.
China produced 110,000 tons of tin in 2013, rising to a world-leading 125,000 tons in 2014. China dominated tungsten supply with 68,000 tons produced in 2014 and 2013, and canceled its tungsten export quota for 2015.
China produced 5,000,000 tons of zinc in 2013 and 2014, leading world production, China’s link reserves are 43,000,000 tons, second to Australia’s 62,000,000 tons.
Value-Added Products
China is the world’s leading iron and steel producer, and was the leading producer of refined cobalt in 2014. China was the leading producer of abrasive fused aluminum oxide and abrasive silicon carbide, limiting production elsewhere. Aluminum smelting increased by 5% in 2014.
China cement production rose from 2,420,000,000 tons in 2013 to 2,500,000,000 tons in 2014, and clinker capacity rose from 1,900,000,000 tons to 2,000,000,000 tons. This accounted for more than half of world production and clinker capacity respectively.
Refinery production of indium was 420 tons in 2014, having risen from 415 tons in 2013 and making up more than half of world production. China imported 27 tons of unwrought indium during the first 8 months of 2014, a 72% drop from the same time period the previous year.
Chinese production of pig iron was 710,000,000 tons in 2014, making up the bulk of the world production of 1,190,000,000 tons. Chinese raw steel production was 820,000,000 tons in 2014, just under half of the world production of 1,650,000,000 tons. China cast a record 16,700,000 tons of austenitic stainless steel in 2014, more than half of the world production total.
Major Exports
Antimony • Barite • Fluorspar • Graphite • Indium • Rare Earth Metals • Tungsten
Market Summary
China’s relative slowdown nevertheless means that there are opportunities for connected and positioned projects. China is especially interested n making smarter investments abroad and is therefore an excellent source for raising capital.
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