Overseas Firms 'Can Bid' in the Largest Gold Mine

Domestic, as well as overseas, companies can bid for the exploration rights of China's largest potential gold mine.

The gold deposit in Yangshan, Gansu Province, has at least 160 tons in proven reserve, Xiong Bilin, deputy director of National Development and Reform Commission's industry department, said yesterday.

The company with the latest and best technology that can ensure minimum wastage of the precious metal is likely to win the bid.

Without giving a specific date for the floating of tenders, Xiong said: "Any company from home and abroad, as long as it has the mining technology and is able to work out a detailed mining plan without harming the environment, can take part in the bid."

The gold deposit could be more than 200 tons, said a People's Daily report earlier, and is in a convenient area with a national highway passing near it.

The NDRC website says gold deposits, with 50 or more tons of reserves, have also been discovered in Zhaishang in Gansu and Damoqujia and Jinchang in Shandong and Heilongjiang provinces.

China produces 224 tons of gold a year, but last year it consumed more than 400 tons. The top three gold producing provinces are Shandong, accounting for 27 percent of the country's total, Henan (14 percent) and Fujian (8 percent).

In the first six months of this year, China produced 122 tons of gold, up 15 percent year-on-year, NDRC said. Also, the gold industry's gross value of products of about 32 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion) - up 44 percent - made a profit of 3.5 billion yuan (US$460 million).

In the first six months, the average global gold price reached US$656 an ounce, breaking the 1980 record of US$614 an ounce.

(China Daily July 18, 2007)

Gold mine discovered in Shaanxi

A new gold mine with at least 80 tons of proven reserves has been found in a mining base in the mountains of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the provincial administration of land and resources said on Wednesday. The new mine, the largest ever found in Shaanxi Province, is located in the Jinlongshan mining area in Zhen'an County, in a remote corner of the fog-shrouded Qinling Mountains.
It has more than 16 million tons of ore, including 2 million tons of oxide ore and at least 14 million tons of primary ore, a spokesman with the administration said.
He said the discovery would beef up China's gold output, which totaled 122.2 tons in the first half of this year.
Earlier this year, China discovered 162 tons of gold reserves in Yangshan Gold Mine in the northwestern Gansu Province and large reserves of more than 50 tons in the same province as well as in the eastern province of Shandong and northeastern province of Heilongjiang, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2007

Five major gold mines discovered in 2007

The China Geological Survey Bureau (CGS) announced Friday that in 2007 the country's gold prospecting efforts made a series of significant findings, with five major gold mines discovered.
The CGS said that the five mines include the copper-gold mine in Gandise of Tibet Autonomous Region, the Dachang gold mine in Qinghai Province, the Yangshan gold mine in southern Gansu Province, the Sizhuang gold mine in Shandong Province and the Baolun gold mine in Hainan Province.
In addition, a number of gold deposits have been found on the peripheries of some lead and zinc mines.
The five mines boast a combined gold reserve of some 600 tons, and there is still great potential for further prospecting, the CGS said.
The Shandong peninsular in east China is one of the country's most important gold producers, with a proved gold reserve of over 1,000 tons so far.
In 2007, China overtook the United States to become the world's second largest gold producer with an output of 270.491 tons, only next to South Africa, which produced 272 tons of gold in 2007. Gold consumption by China's manufacturing sector was about 9.2 percent of the global total, according to official data.
China plans to produce 1,300 tons of gold and verify gold mine reserves of 3,000 to 5,000 tons in the five-year period between 2006 and 2010, according to the State Development and Reform Commission. (Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2008)