CHINA MINING News

Mr. Wang Min toured the exhibition of CHINA MINING 2015

Source: KHB        Citation: KHB     Date: October 21, 2015

On the afternoon of October 20, 2015, Mr. Wang Min, the vice minister of the Ministry of Land and Resources, PRC, and vice chairman of the organizing committee of CHINA MINING Congress and Expo toured the exhibition of China Mining 2015 and listen to the staff introducing the details.

(Source: www.chinamining.org.cn)

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on October 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us. For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Mr. Peng Qiming hosted the keynote session of CHINA MINING 2015

Source: www.chinanining.org.cn    Citation: www.chinamining.org.cn   Date: October 21, 2015

(Source of the picture: www.chinamining.org.cn)

On the morning of October 21, 2015, the keynote session of CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 was held in Meijiang Convention and Exhibition of Tianjin. Industry leaders and renowned economists made speeches on the theme of New Normal, Mew opportunities, New Development. The picture above is that Mr. Peng Qiming, the chief engineer of the Ministry of Land and Resources, PRC, was hosting the keynote session.

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on October 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us. For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Mr. Chen Jinghe delivered a speech on the keynote session of CHINA MINING 2015

Source: www.mlr.gov.cn  Citation: www.gtzyb.com     Date: October 21, 2015

On the morning of Oct.21, 2015, the keynote session of CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 was convened at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center of Tianjin. Business leaders and renowned economists delivered speeches around the theme “New Normal，New Opportunities，New Development”. The picture shows that Chen Jinghe, chairman of Zijin Mining Group Company, was delivering a speech with the topic of “The Challenge and Prospect of China`s Mining Industry under the New Normal of Economy”.

Distinguished chairman,

Dear colleagues in mining industry and friends from all walks of life concerned about mining industry,

Good morning!

It’s my great honor to stand here to exchange views on issues related to China’s mining industry with you.

The issue I would talk about today was relatively heavy as we knew that it was the winter period for mining industry. All people in this industry should stand the severe test of the cold winter as we had no idea how long the cold will last, whether this was the coldest winter for mining industry and what the future of China’s mining industry would look like.

I thought the “frosty winter” period of China’s mining industry under the new normal was mainly characterized by the following. China’s economic development trend has changed tremendously because of the economic new normal. First, the growth speed was gradually slowing down and industrialization has basically entered the middle and late period or completely the late period. Great changes have taken place in the shift of growth mode. The industrialization period in the first one or two decades was featured by consumption of massive raw mineral materials, later replaced by the development of service industry. Though China’s mining industry was still growing, its growth rate was decreasing, which was against the favor of mining industry under new normal.

The high economic growth rate led by industry in the past 30 years was entering the bottleneck period. Days when money could be earned only through growth has gone. Surplus was the most common economic phenomenon under the new normal.

The real estate has great a great bearing on mining industry as well as our economy. In the past ten years, the total areas of the buildings we built has exceeded the sum ever after the human being exists. It was both impossible and unrealistic if the areas continued to increase.

As to the bulk commodity, its mass production and exploration in China has occupied 40%-50% those of the globe. During this period, we have created a number of “first” in the world. Such huge consumption has led to a super cycle in bulk commodities over the past ten years. Against the backdrop of the slumping consumption demand or the sluggish growth, the price of mineral products has begun to fall three years before and the price of some products plummeted a good deal, which has brought about difficulties to the whole mining industry with most of the investors adversely affected. Likewise, the once successful coal industry with huge profits made has suffered great losses. This was an in-depth and cruel reality.

The population in Chinese mainland occupied 20% of the global, but we consumed more than 40% of the global resources. Against this backdrop, it was both impossible and unrealistic to drive the growth of the global mining industry just by depending on China’s growth. It was also impossible for our colleagues in mining industry to weather through the difficulties like what happened in 2008 and 2009 as the whole consumption demand has now entered the bottleneck period.

According to the national statistics, profits of mining industry began to fall by some 8% in 2012, 17% in 2013, 13% in 2014. This year the profits of mining industry from January to August fell by 57%, the unprecedentedly difficult year for mining industry. The profits of mining industry to industrial profits fell from 18.9% to 5.9%.

The “Four Mining” problems our minister once repeatedly referred to would reoccur. As a matter of fact, most of mining companies has chosen to increase their production capacity in the event of dropping price. Commodity prices will still fluctuate at current level, the price of some products may drop even further. Under the present difficult market conditions when price fell and companies made losses, many mining companies, including Zijin Mining got their profits by increasing production, it would take much longer time than expected to restore reasonable prices by eliminating additional capacity and reducing supply.

Second, China’s mining industry had its inherent problems from the beginning. The size of most mines was small, the grade was low, the exploration was difficult, and its marketization degree was lower than that of other industries. Even some corporations were only large in size but still weak in those aspects.

China’s mining industry was also characterized by its fragmentation. It is a fragmented economy mainly because the state-owned enterprises occupied most of the industry. China’s mineral resources expected high dependence on foreign countries with 56% iron ores, 83% copper mine, 57% bauxite,57% crude oil depending on import.

Under the new normal, I thought mining industry should seek survival first before pursuing development. Second, we should improve the internal strength of mining industry to control its cost which is the most important criterion to judge a mining industry. Even during the time when mining industry flourished and the prices rose year by year, however fine the management was, its cost management would be extensive, which best exemplified that there was still room for cost control. 

Third, the industry system formed in the flourishing period of mining industry should be reformed and readjusted and various costs should be tightened.

However, under the new normal, mining industry also met with some good opportunities, which was one of the themes of great importance for this conference. China’s economy still remained a relatively high growth speed, which was a positive sign. I thought that a 5% growth on that huge base was still a good rate; the emerging of India and countries in Southeastern Asia and along the “One Belt and One Road” as well as economic rebound in developed economies led by the US were all important factors in the increase of demands for mineral products. Along the complete red line cost, the prices of many minerals were near cash cost with some higher than the cost.

Moreover, the capital contribution to mine explorations and building was much larger than that in the past, which would limit the downside of price fall. In addition, M&A among mining companies were increasingly becoming active. China’s mining companies would increase their global presence under the guidance of the One Belt and One Road Initiative, and become one of the most active players in the international market.

I thought some of China’s mining companies boasts of the basic conditions of participating in the global mining competition. In the past two or three decades, great changes have taken place in China’s mining industry. Though China was not abundant in resources, mining industry has also created some miracles. While China’s mining companies draw more lessons and pay more costs in going global, we still believed that we could not put undue criticism on the predecessors of mining industry as even the icons of this industry have made the same mistakes-they have made tens of billions dollars of provisions these years. There was a case in which a international mining giant bought a deposit with 4 billion dollars, only making profits of 5 million dollars.

China’s mining industry had its own advantages. We have applied a number of advanced technologies in development and innovation. These technologies were rather creative in its application and cost control. Some resources like low-grade or hard- explored mines could not be explored even in the international market, but we took the lead in their effective exploration. Moreover, we had our own advantages in the exploration of some small complicated deposits

But one of the critical weaknesses of China’s lied in its shortage of talents and experience in international operation, a problem could only be solved in practice but not through training. I believed that going global was the hope for the future development of China’s mining industry since China was faced with challenges presented by overexploitation of domestic resources, low resources per capita and limited space for internal growth.

The gloomy global mining market has resulted in substantial under-evaluation of many mineral resources and mining companies. As not so long ago some large mining companies engaged in overcapitalization and thus involved in high liability ratio, they needed to sell some projects or seek fund cooperation. It was fairly to say that going global to take part in the cooperation and competition of international market was rather a marvelous opportunity for the future development of mining industry.

Under the current market condition, if China, as the biggest consumer of mineral products, did not seize up the situation and cultivate the transnational mineral cooperation of international influence, our mining industry was doomed to be a failure. When it came to Chinese Dream, people in mining industry should also make their due contributions to realizing it.

One thing that draws our attention was that with the RMB accelerating into the world, we could expect very soon to see that China’s capital would move into the global capital market and China’s mining industry was destined to make a big difference. Since China’s accession into WTO in 2001, we have seen products made in China around the globe in the past dozens of years. If RMB could be integrated into the world market more quickly and could be fully convertible under downward capital, if China’s capital could be completely dependable around the globe, China would not only make new achievements including the “Belt and Road” Initiative but also make money around the world, thus further realizing our Chinese Dream.

Here I wanted to propose some advice. First to the relevant departments of our government. The current rules and regulations concerning mining industry were enacted during the mining boom. They played an important role in standardizing mining industry, avoiding excessive storage and harm and running the industry in accordance with the law. It was a time when money was easily earned and policies of fiscal and taxation were strictly implemented. Now with the great changes taking place in the market, the project approval has become rather rigid and the acquisition of mining rights and market transfer were both difficult. We hoped for a more open environment for the mining market as the procedures and time for review and approval were too complicated.

We also expected the eleven management departments as well as fiscal and taxation departments related to mining industry would conduct reforms soon so as to help the mining companies weather through the difficulties.

By taking the platform of China Mining, I wanted to make reference to one thing that heavy mental anomalies in soil was a matter of great importance and has a great bearing on mining industry. In particular, I urged a careful differentiation between background anomalies and pollution resulted from development of mines, or else mining industry would lead astray. We, engaged in geological exploration, must be clear that deposits were formed through anomalies of stream sediment, soil and rock elements. Where mines could be discovered was definitely abnormal in heavy metal. Some research and even some technology departments and the media simply considered heavy metal anomalies as metal pollution. Media reports often came that heavy metal pollution in soil was background anomalies. Pollution in the course of mining exploration was only a small part of mining industry. It would be too terrible if pollution happened time and again. I hoped that more emphasis should be given to environmental geology when mine fields were being reviewed.

Lastly, I hoped greater support could be given to mining companies. The “Belt and Road” Initiative has shed more lights to those enterprises and created sound policy environment for China’s mining industry to forge ahead into the world market.

I hoped government could provide going-global companies with more policy and funding support such as easier access to finance in the capital market, low-interest funding support with sufficient foreign exchange reserves, favorable policies for project approval, etc.

China’s mining companies should learn experience from peers around the world and at the same time, put more emphasis on the harmonious development of communities. Third, I hoped that coherent forces could be formed between companies and funds provided to avoid disordered competition and industrial associations could provide havens for mining companies. In addition, I also expected that the industrial associations such as the China Mining Association to take a more proactive position in defensing this downturn by listening carefully to the concerns of mining companies and thereafter reporting the industrial status quo and demands to relevant authorities.

Finally, I wanted to brief on the development of Zijin Mining under the new normal. The general development of Zijin Mining was featured by internalization, large-scale projects and asset securitization with internalization becoming the main direction for the new round of development. Inside the company, we gave top priority to reform, growth and development. The gross profit of our mineral products still stood at around 40%, higher than that of the most mining companies. We still had great confidence about our future. In general, we would continue to adopt a positive attitude in promoting the development of mining companies.

Here I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the attention leaders of all levels and friends from all walks of life have given to us.

Thank you!

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on October 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us. For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Mr. Li Shanquan delivered a speech on the keynote session of CHINA MINING 2015

Source: www.mlr.gov.cn   Citation: www.gtzyb.com   Date: October 21, 2015

(Photo: Zhao Xinhao; Edit: Xu Xiaojing)

On the morning of October 21, 2015, the keynote session of CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 was held at Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center, where industry leaders, renowned economists made speeches around the theme “New Normal, New Opportunities, New Development”. The picture above shows that Mr. Li Shanquan, Senior Vice President and Senior Fund Manager of Oppenheimer Funds in US, was giving a speech entitled “Long period of Mining Investment and Price Fluctuation of International Commodities; Opportunities and Challenges that Chinese Enterprise Will Face When Going Out”.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

Good Morning!

I want to express my gratitude to the organizer for giving me such an opportunity to share with you some of my experience of mining investment, while talk about my opinions on Chinese enterprises going out.

Today I want to talk about four contents, the first is the particularity and investment of mining industry, the second is the opportunities and challenges the Chinese mining companies faced when investing overseas, the third is a few specific suggestions on Chinese mining companies going out, all these are from my own investment experience; the last one, if time allowed, I want to talk about the prospects of the future market.

(PPT) The Particularity and Investment of Mining Industry

All people present here are experts, knowing clear about mining industry, that it boasts a characteristic of long-period. Long-period not only reflected in the long-period of the project itself, the long-period investment cycle, but mainly about the industry, its own law is also long-period. Why? It mainly caused by the limited resources. Because the resource is located in the upper reaches of the whole value chain. In other words, you are not be able to find the resources if you want to invest. It is the case in many countries. Another reason is that, even if you find the resources, it would cost at least three to five years from exploration to construction, then put into production and operation. Mining is a capital-intensive  industry with large capital requirement and financing difficulty, for that it’s  a long-period investment and involves the most extensive fields, including the relationships between regulations, real estate, environmental protection and government, and relationships with the communities, etc. While the mining industry is also the traditional industry, with slow technological progress, and the average R&D proportion of the industry is very low.

Then, it’s difficult for the mining production companies to be personalized, and the competition among enterprises is about the level of management apart form the quality of resources. Innovation is very difficult.

What’s more, the scale merit of mining companies is not obvious, the main purpose of the corporate merges being gaining resources.

The particularity of mining industry is also embodied in the pricing power of the mining products, which not only depend on a single producer or a single user, almost every producer accept the prices on the international market passively, there being little room for the price fluctuation. And the futures market basically enlarges the essential supply and demand, increasing the price fluctuation. The originally simple supply and demand has been magnified for several times or even ten odd times by the frequent futures trades, increasing the difficulty of predicting the prices of mining products, for that it’s very difficult for the investors to correctly predict the prices. 

The side effects of Wall Street’s innovation.  Because there are new products emerging constantly around the bulk commodities in Wall Street, making the price symbol increasingly deviates from the original supply and demand. For example, the price predicts made by traders in the major companies in Wall Street and economists on all kinds of goods have an increasing influence on prices, more and more valuing short-term and techniques. Certainly, there is a problem determined by interest relationship. For example, one year we had a meeting held at Goldman Sachs, an analyst from Goldman Sachs asked Richard, the CEO of FCX then about his opinion on the earnings of the next quarter. Richard’s answer was very interesting, he said, “I hold the fundamentally different view from yours. The reason is that what you are interested are the benefits of each quarter, because the accuracy of your prediction directly related to your year-end bonus. But as an entrepreneur, what I concerned more about is the prospect of my company in the next five to ten years. It can be seen that there are significant differences between the Wall Street and corporate in behaviors.

Further, we can see the following characteristics from the particularities of mining investment. The long-period characteristic of mining industry makes the investment decision-making extremely difficult, adding great difficulties to the assessment and analysis of projects not only for the enterprises but also investors like us. The changing cycle dislocation of investment and real supply and demand always results in the substantial waste of capital and social resources. When the contradiction of supply and demand is prominent and commodity prices are unreasonably high, investment always being most active. It was the proper time for people to brake, but people continued to invest inwards, promoting the further excess production capacity. While formation of production capacity from investment needs a few years, but this time increases the excess production capacity, and would exacerbate the loss as soon as the project put into operation. There’s a saying in Wall Street, “Sell at peak earning”, which is difficult to do otherwise. For enterprises, the most difficult time is often the best time to invest, for that the investment price becomes very low. But that period of time is the most difficult time, they are generally unable to invest, they can’t get money or financing to expand their production even if they observe good chance. So it will be greatly beneficial if the enterprises could anticipate the future period when the prices are high, and make some proper adjustments on their investment not for the overcapacity price tag, but to appropriately reduce the degree the crisis exacerbation or deepen. Actually, the problem also plagued the international mining industry. But there is no particular good solutions has been found yet, from the perspective of investors, businesses or government, they all want to reduce the dramatic fluctuations, but very difficult to do. Actually, the characteristic of long-period is to consider how to avoid the ups and downs of the industry under conditions of long cycle.

Can the goal be realized? Personally, I think the difficulty is not small. Because the mining companies are often more passive. Since in the most upstream of the resources, products are always controlled by others, which means in accordance with the standards, the investment should have gained proportionate return, but mining industry is not exactly like this. What are the reasons for the case that you may not be able to get some investment return? Because you have to find the resources, the limited resources determine the investment may not be able to find resources.

And the second issue I want to talk is about the opportunities and challenges faced by the Chinese enterprises when going out. Like other industries, it’s evitable for the mining enterprises to go global as a result of economic development. As China’s economic aggregate grows, the demand for resources has also increased constantly, the domestic resource contradiction will become increasingly prominent, and the quantity and quality of international resources should be said being far superior to domestic resources on related to many products. The domestic mining enterprises also boast a lot of advantages if going out. For example, domestic enterprises are very different from the ones twenty years ago. Firstly, on the capital advantage, the domestic enterprises are equal to the overseas enterprises. Meanwhile, from the aspects of technology and management, especially the support of government, we have conferences like CHINA MINING Congress and Expo, which is almost the only one that gets the largest support from the Chinese Government. We can see that the Chinese Government offers very large support for this aspect. Nowadays, some significant decisions, such as “Belt and Road Initiative” and “Silk Road Fund” and so on, all showing the large support the Chinese Government has given to Chinese enterprises for going out, which is second to none.

Besides, improvement of China’s international status also adds convenience to the overseas development of mining enterprises, which is a good condition for Chinese enterprises to go global.

Of course, Chinese enterprises would face a series of challenges, because the distribution of the world’s resources is not very balanced, and many places lack of resources, especially some countries with scarce resources, also acting as China’s competitors in the international market. Particularly, the major international mining companies has a long history of finding resources world-wide, with the main good mineral resources and easily mined ones having already been exploited, so Chinese enterprises also have many challenges to handle.

As a latecomer, Chinese enterprises will face constantly increasing difficulty of access to resources and price, because the layout has already been constructed. So we should take some proper policies or strategies to support Chinese enterprises successfully going out. So for the Chinese enterprises, especially the mining enterprises to develop overseas, there should be a process of learning and adaptation. We should carry out of scientific decision-making policy of proactive research, prudent investment and long-term perspective, reducing blindness, and try to less “tuition”. Investment on material objects are always the biggest waste, especially the mining investment, if the decision being wrong, there is very little chance to take back the already paid money.

Now, I’d like to give some specific suggestion on Chinese mining enterprises’ going out. Firstly, I think that scientific decisions is inseparable from necessary information. If we want to help Chinese mining enterprises to go out, we should first build or buy a global mining database, which is not the simple numbers, but with many other contents, including what contents? For example, it should include resource distribution, proven reserves, the size, grade, owner (organization or enterprise), transfer history of ownership of the reserve, regulations, environmental protection requirements, foreign investment approval procedures in the host country, and whether foreign mining enterprises have been in operation, which country are the mining enterprises belong, the exact size and operational life of them, etc. This is a very detailed database, which is beneficial for your more accurate decision and judge. Hence, it’s urgent to build the database. If you have difficulty in building one database, you can buy instead. As far as I know, there are many such databases internationally.

Secondly, based on the mastered databases, we should track the dynamic of the mining listed companies. The information in the capital market are changing every moment, reflecting the conditions of exploration, development, construction and operation of the mining companies. Meanwhile, it also reflects the political, economic and regulatory changes of the host country. These information provides a lot of clues for the enterprises to grasp the best merger and acquisition time, seeking for better resources. We should learn to effectively utilize the public information and track the listed enterprises of these resource classes around the world.

Thirdly, the qualified enterprises should establish their own technology team, conducting focused tracking on the related mining projects in the interested countries and regions. If conditions permit, we should find opportunities to conduct field investigation on these projects, establishing the first-hand information databases after study and upgrade these databases timely. 

Honestly, I have participated in many global mining congresses and many times in CHINA MINING, it’s very gratifying that it has developed to today’s scale. But compared to the conferences on other fields, the present Chinese faces or Chinese enterprises are very few and limited, unlike international conferences on other industrial manufacturing field of industries as Internet, more Chinese people and enterprises could be seen than in CHINA MINING. We hope that Chinese mining enterprises should try their best to find opportunities to go out, starting from participating in the conferences, to contacting with your competitors or your potential acquisition targets. Because there are a large number of international companies present in such conferences, I hope we can see more and more Chinese enterprises and Chinese faces.

Fourthly, for the interested listed companies, Chinese companies should try to hold minority of shares, in order to learn more details of the project. In order to prevent premature exposure of the targets, sole share holding should be avoided. For example, you can hold shares of 5 or more companies, each no more than 5%, so that you can advance or retreat as you like. On the one hand, you can constantly increase the share of ownership, until merger; on the other, you can choose a good price to sell all these shares, which is a passive investment, but you can not only train the team but also get considerable returns. It’s also the basic practice of many large foreign companies. Some of the large companies I invested also practice like this. Take a simple example, the exploration companies. The risk of geological prospecting enterprises is relatively large, many big companies don’t want to abandon the small companies or try to focus on small businesses, not knowing which company would get major discovery in drilling. Generally speaking, there is a team in the large company specializes in researching these companies to appropriately hold shares of these small companies. For example, if you invest 5%, about millions of dollars to hold their shares, if they once drilled successfully, your share is of great value, and you can continue to append the share, which laying solid foundation for the subsequent acquisition. So many large international mining enterprises are basically practicing like this.

Of course, the recent industry is downturn, the share of investment is relatively small, because many big mining enterprises are facing difficulties. The financial statements are not good, sales of assets are primary, while the ones buying assets are relatively less.

The fifth specific suggestion is that, in many cases you don’t need to hold the shares, but what is the biggest problem leads to our detours? The problem is that we always want to hold the shares. In fact, holding and controlling resources are different in many cases, it’s very important to learn joint venture and cooperation in the access to resources. Even though many mature companies, project cooperation among them are very wide, whether to control the management right is according to the specific situation. And if you could cooperate with a powerful manager, even if without the control, only the passive investment will be beneficial.

Now I want to take Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. as an example. We can observe from its recent cooperation with several major international companies overseas that they has changed the method they used to take, but not holding the shares instead. For example, they have invested a Canadian company recently, both of which hold certain shares and manage together. Including the recent cooperation with the gold production company, I have talked about this issue with the company’s chairman. At that time, he said that he want to cooperate with the Chinese companies because he has Chinese background. In my office, I told him, if he wanted to cooperate with Chinese enterprises, the way of selling the whole company to Chinese company was not adoptable, especially what he sold was generally not good resources. The core resources and assets of large companies would not be sold, such as the largest project he said in South American, with billions of dollars having been invested there, and which now encountered with many difficulties, and mining being very difficult. If he want to sell this mine, whether Chinese enterprises have the ability to purchase? From the perspective of capital, our Chinese enterprises can purchase the mine, but it’s very difficult to pragmatically manage it well. I had visited that place, so I told him that he’d better cooperate with Chinese companies with sincere and gain some achievement. Now the financial report is not good, you can make joint efforts with Chinese company to rejuvenate that mine, instead of sitting by and doing nothing after selling the mine. Because you had take decades to manage the mine but failed, I think the possibility that Chinese company would success is relatively low, which would severely damage your credit in Chinese enterprises’ mind. Because it’s equal to leave a mess to China, so I suggested that taking the joint venture as a better approach. The good news is that, Zijin Ming basically adopted the method of joint venture cooperation, which I think is adoptable.

The last suggestion, Chinese enterprises going out is a long-term strategy not a short-term matter, there being a structure issue and state of companies going out to be considered. In my opinion, private enterprises and mixed ownership have advantages overseas. I’m not saying that state-owned enterprises are not adoptable, they are endowed with advantages of large scale, capital, technology and management, but we should see there being some weakness in state-owned enterprises, such as the decision-making procedures is not fast and easy to be duped by their competitors. Chinese enterprises should try ways of mixed ownership, joint bids and cooperation acquisitions, etc. in the future, which is same as the overseas situation, we can bid one thing with two or three companies when we are not powerful enough. After getting one project, we should consider how to organize one united team to successfully operate it. Just as the overseas mining, including some enterprises I own, there are much more companies use this kind of method, in order to converge their advantages together to successfully finish the project. So they need joint venture cooperation, which is called the mixed ownership. It’s very convenient for state-owned enterprises to undertake China-aid foreign projects overseas, but mining projects are interests-oriented, sometimes your competitors would take advantage of your background as a state-owned company. For example, some time ago, when conducting energy mergers and acquisitions, your competitors could allege that you were playing the politics card as a state-owned company, so you would miss the good projects. Because as a state-owned company, related with national interests, which is political rhetoric and can completely kill your opportunity. Hence, sometimes mixed ownership or private enterprises are not necessarily without advantages, but with possible advantages instead.

Finally I want to talk about the market conditions in the future. Although until present, the market has been in a downtrend channel for a period of time, but the overall long-term upward trend has not changed. I will show you one picture later. And the limited resources in the world has not changes, as the reality of there being less and less available and easily accessible resources has not changed. Not matter how science and technology progress and develop, the fact that most of the basic resources must come from the mining industry would not change. Then, as mankind has increasing requirements on environmental protection, which will make mining costs gradually increase. It’s inevitable of cost-driven price rises, meaning that the price-rising trend of mining industry is basically difficult to change.

You can see this picture from a company specialized in resource research, about the research for a long period from 1720 to 2015, which basically showing the commodity changing trend. We can see that the basic trend is upward, and the decline in recent years is generally in the upstream channel in terms of the upwards channel. So we can’t say that mining industry has no future just in accordance with the immediate downturn, which is not accurate, in the long history, you will find that is just the specific embody of a long circle. In a long-term view, it’s a relatively good investment opportunity to invest in mining industry, because you can purchase assets with high quality with less price in the downturn period.

And I would take gold as another example, because I have sold gold for many years, so I’d like to share you with this issue. Actually there are many factors influence the price of gold, so as a special commodity, gold boasts different property from other bulk commodities. Firstly, from the view of supply and demand contradictions, it’s a gambling of many factors. From the aspect of supply, such as production, recovery, recycling and manufacturers’ hedging would all influence the supply of gold. From the aspect of demand, it’s just the same, if the monetary authority—the Central Bank buy a lot of gold, the ordinary investors would invest gold in more financial goods for hedging. As for jewelry and decorative decoration, it’s increasingly difficult to predict the demand side of gold product property for the multi-factors. Although many economists and merchants predicted the future trend of gold in the market, but during my engagement in the gold investment in the past twenty years, I think there’s rare people could make accurate forecast.

For example, when the gold price was at the lowest level falling to 252 dollars/ ounces, if people were told that gold would rise to 1900 dollars/ounces, they would think that you were talking nonsense, almost impossible. But actually, after some years, the price of gold rose to 1900 dollars/ ounces, and at that time or when it rose to 1800 dollars/ ounces, someone told me gold price would rise to 5000 dollars/ ounces, or even ten thousand dollars/ ounces, it has been proven to be nonsense. But it’s difficult to forecast accurately. Apart from the multi-factors and complex factors influence gold price, there is another reason affect the difficulty of prediction, for that actually each prediction is a dynamic gambling game, in which people can’t determine which force prevail easily, and this would directly influence your forecast result. For example, some people said that people buy gold because they are afraid. But many factors would cause fear, such as inflation deflation, wars, the collapse of the monetary system and so on, all of these could make people afraid. Meanwhile, there are many factors and policies would change the moods of fear, make people not be afraid in one moment. Some time ago, one important reason for gold price rising to such a high level is the continuous depreciation of dollars. People believed that the crisis of United States was very severe, then the whole world monetary system would go wrong, so the gold price rose to 1900 dollars/ ounces. It was a significant factor, but now the economy of US has became normal, which means the result of gambling is that through the policy adjustment, US has made people less afraid of the result of the collapse of the system. So the price of gold has fallen to the present situation from 1900 dollars.

Another factor is that the gold futures market has magnified the gold supply and demand. Financial innovations make the speculation and investment behavior of gold closely interwoven, such as the foundation of GLD attracted a large amount of gold, perhaps hundreds of tons were in that field. In the past, it’s very difficult to invest in futures or even just open an account, and to buy gold futures for the ordinary people. But after the foundation of GLD, the ordinary investment could purchase gold just as the trading of stocks, thus, this product attracted a lot of gold in that field. Meanwhile, various market-trade products like ETF are increasing worldwide, these products continued to arbitrage, resulting in the increasing investment of gold in the demanding fields. Thus, the prediction of gold became more difficult.

In fact, there are many most basic factors influence gold, I would talk about them simply. For example, from the perspective of the Central Bank, we can see the Chinese factors from this table, such as China’s gold reserves, ranking first in the world as foreign exchange reserves. We have many dollars, but gold occupies a very low proportion in the total gold reserves, so compared to foreign exchange reserves, the gold proportion is very low. In fact, if China changes slightly in this regard, it will directly affect the price of gold.

Observing more carefully, we can find from the short-term analysis that, because China is actively preparing join the SDR, and Special Drawing Right of MF has driven the transparency of the Central Bank. In the past, the Central Bank rarely disclosed the gold reserves. I remembered the Central Bank hasn’t disclose how much gold held by them for 5 years, which rose sharply by more than 600 tons 5 years later, from then, in order to increase transparency, it disclosed the reserves every month. Estimated in accordance with the data published, the gold reserves increased by 19 tons in July 2015, and by 16 tons in August, by 15 tons in September, so it has reached about 1,709 tons now. But we don’t know whether it would buy gold in October or the amount. The trend is worthy of attention, but I don’t know whether it continue to purchase in the future. Some people said that they had bought a lot, but it may be much less if disclosed.

There are many other factors affecting gold, you can find that people take various methods to compare gold with other metals. For example, compare gold’s price trend and correlation among other precious metals, or compare the relationship between gold and silver, or relationship between gold price and cooper and oil, including the relationship with producer price index, etc. But what I want to emphasis is this figure. Actually, gold’s monetary attributes is its most significant property, which is very interesting in the field of gold investment, if further analyze the monetary attribute of gold, you can find from the figure that, gold price is calculated via different currencies. If you put aside other factors, observe the gold price through currencies in each country, the investment opportunities would suddenly offer you a lot of clues. If you often read the change of gold price with the standard of US dollars, then you start to measure by Australia dollars, you would find that invest the gold producers in Australia can get better stock performance. Why? Because the Australian dollars is devalued, but the US dollars is in an appreciation trend, so his final products sold in the international market would gain US dollars, while the domestic cost is measured by Australian dollars. So you can see that the profit margin expanded rapidly. Although the resource quality may not be second to none, but the profit potential of Australian companies increased a great deal.

Canada is of the same situation, for that the devaluation of Canadian dollar induced the profit margins of Canadian enterprises producing gold increased rapidly. So from the aspect of profit, investing the gold producing enterprises in Canada is relatively a good choice. And there are another problem, the currency attribute of gold forces you to measure the price of gold via the currency of different countries, which might offer you a clue to judge the appropriateness of one place for investment. Sometimes we pay higher attention to these things.

All above is what I want to share with you, if there are other problems, we can talk about it in private. Thank you all!

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on October 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us.  For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

The Highlight Browse of CHINA MINING Congress & Expo 2015

Source: www.mlr.gov.cn   Citation: www. www.zgkyb.com   Date: October 20, 2015

Editor’s note

The seventeenth Chinese International Mining Conference, co-sponsored by Chinese Ministry of Land Resources, Tianjin Municipal People`s Government and Chinese Mining association, was held in Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center from Oct.20 to Oct.23 in 2015. This conference was held annually since 1999 and its influence has been massively improved after ten years of development. Undoubtedly, many highlights go through this year’s meeting, let’s unveil and enjoy it now.

First: Highlighting the theme "new normal, new opportunities, new development"

This session revolves around the strategy “One Belt And One Road(OBAOR)”, builds the strategic fulcrum of international cooperation in the field of geological mining actively; highlights the theme "new normal, new opportunities, new development", and discusses the situation on the global mineral exploration, mining and financial capital markets, geological prospecting and technological innovation, conservation and comprehensive utilization of mineral resources, mining and “Green Mining” and so on. The meeting focuses on negotiation, signing and exchanging activities among both domestic and foreign mining cooperation projects, further promoting the substantive cooperation among domestic and foreign mining companies.

Second: The generalization of this year’s meeting has been further enhanced, with the attendance of the Peruvian Embassy as a new international co-organizer.

The delegates and exhibitors of this session are more extensiveness, covering the world`s major mining countries and resource-rich countries on all continents, important international organizations, large mining enterprises, financial investment institutions, consulting and technology intermediary service organizations, trade associations are actively participating in the fair, especially this session also adds Peruvian Embassy as a new international co-organizer.

Third: Optimizing the settings of sub-forum and the thematic forum

This session will optimize the settings of sub-forum and the thematic forum, focusing on key countries and regions, strengthening the research and judgment of the international mining and economic situation, organizing thematic forums based on macroeconomic and mining, mining and financial capital markets, the outlook of important mineral products in the market and other issues. Besides, the organizing committee will invite the World Bank Group`s International Finance Corporation and the China Banking Regulatory Commission to hold the training “accelerating sustainable development credit rating” before the meeting, exploring the best way to implement efficient credit policies to promote the sustainable development of mining investment.

Fourth: New added the Forum of Directors of Geological Survey

New added the Forum of Directors of Geological Survey in this session, directors from different countries’ Geological Surveys respectively introduce their latest situation of national geological survey and mineral exploration; investigate the overall picture and major progress of international earth science cooperation under the new situation.

Fifth: Added the forum of “China(Tianjin) pilot area of free trade policies and opportunities under the frame of ‘One Belt And One Road(OBAOR)’”.

This session will hold the Mining Investment Forum of Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Sudan and other countries; Northern Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Greenland and other areas, and provide the opportunities for participating countries and regions to promote and introduce their mining cooperation projects, and continue to hold the mineral resources management seminar with Canada and other important mining countries. Besides, this session will add the forum of “China(Tianjin) pilot area of free trade policies and opportunities under the frame of ‘One Belt And One Road(OBAOR)’”to promote the cooperation and exchanges between Tianjin and the other countries and regions.

Sixth: Larger exhibition area, more global pavilions.

The industry exhibition sections of the assembly consists of comprehensive mining exhibition (standard booth), national mining exhibition, special equipment setting exhibition, project negotiations and mineral rights trading exhibition , mining equipment exhibition and supporting service areas, exhibition area of over 38,000 square meters. China, Canada, Australia, Greenland, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Russia and other important mining countries and regions will organize a huge lineup of delegation to attend the exposition. Meanwhile, the relevant departments of Sudan, Poland, Cambodia, India, Papua New Guinea and other countries and regions indicate sending delegations to attend the exposition.

Seventh: Enhance and highlight the mining rights trading exhibition

The assembly will further strengthen the case display of mineral exploration and production results, development of new technology and new equipment, assorted mining machinery, precision instruments, as well as the core of major projects, mineral specimens, highlighting the reinforcement of mining rights trading exhibition. In project negotiations and mineral rights transactions exhibition, geological prospecting units from Chinese National Land and Resources System, domestic and foreign mining companies, financial investment institutions, etc., will organize matchmaking and mineral rights transactions of mineral exploration and development cooperation activities.

Eighth: High standards and the growing influence

China International Mining Conference is the highest level of meeting held in China`s mining industry, covering the geological survey, exploration and production, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, technology and equipment, mining services, throughout the entire mining industry chain. China International Mining Conference is not only a trading platform of mineral exploration and production, but also serving as the bridge of communication for both domestic and foreign mining companies and relevant agencies.（Wu Qihua）

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on November 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us.  For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Multiple Investment Situation in Shale Gas Exploration was Formed

---Take You through the Situation of Shale Gas Resource in China

Source: www.mlr.gov.cn/   Citation: www. www.zgkyb.com   Date: October 20, 2015

After nearly five years of hard work, the shale gas exploration and development of China has made a good beginning.

As "The Report on Shale Gas Resource in China (2014)"(hereinafter referred to as "the report") shows, the shale gas exploration and development companies in China has taken the lead in shale gas exploration and development in Sichuan basin, they discovered the first un-compartmentalized shale gas field with a geological reserve of one hundred billion cubic meters. The exploration and development technology had been basically localized, and entered the large-scale development in the early stage.

By the end of 2014, the total investment was 23 billion. Major breakthroughs were made in Fuling of Chongqing, Changning, Weiyuan of Sichuan and other areas. The tricritcal geological reserves of shale gas achieved nearly 500 billion cubic meters, including 106.75 billion cubic meters of explored geological reserves, 3.2 billion cubic meters of build production capacity per year, and 1.5 billion cubic meters of cumulative production of shale gas.

The shale oil and gas has a large resource potential

The shale system was rich and widespread in China, and the shale gas resource had a tremendous potential. According to the survey, the lower Paleozoic marine strata in the south was the main shale system in China, the Longmaxi Formation of Middle and Upper Yangtze region is the optimal section, which accounted for 20% of the shale gas resource of the whole country.

From 2009 to 2012, the Ministry of Land and Resources spent 660 million on the investigative work of shale gas resource in the key areas. It also made evaluations on the potential evaluation of shale gas resource in 41 basins (regions), 87 evaluation units, and 57 gas shale sections in China, which including 62 implementary survey wells, 4 parametric wells, 1500 km of gravity-magnetic-electric measurement, and 210 km of two-dimensional seism.

The results showed that 134 trillion cubic meters of the shale gas geological resource (excluding the Qinghai-Tibet), was about double of conventional natural gas geological resource. Shale gas recoverable resource was 25 trillion cubic meters. Meanwhile, it was found that the lower Paleozoic marine strata bed in the south was the main shale gas system in our country.

Major progress was made in the development demonstration base

Some key areas made progress on the evaluation of shale gas resource, such as Changning-Weiyuan demonstration area, Fuling of Chongqing exploration development demonstration base, Zhaotong of Yunnan demonstration area, Yanchang of Shaanxi demonstration area, the north of Guizhou exploration testing area, and the bidding regions.

By the end of 2014, the development demonstration base confirmed that the shale gas geological resource was 699 million cubic meters, the explored geological reserves was 106.75 billion cubic meters.

Fuling exploration development demonstration base was located in the southeast of Sichuan, including the south of Wanxian, the north of Fuling, the east of Dianjiang, and the west of Zhongxian. By the end of 2015, it is predicted that the Fuling exploration development demonstration base will have explored reserves of 100 billion cubic meters, which will form 5 billion cubic meters of production capacity, 3.2 billion cubic meters of the gas production rate per year. By the end of 2017, it is predicted that the accumulative explored geological reserve will reach 300 billion cubic meters and the production capacity will reach 10 billion cubic meters per year, which will provide the typical demonstration for shale gas exploration development throughout the country.

In August 2014, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the People`s Government of Guizhou had set up the shale gas comprehensive exploration testing area in the north of Guizhou, for accelerating the shale gas exploration development in Guizhou.

The shale gas business development is kicked off

The shale gas market is huge in China.

By the end of 2014, Fuling shale gas field completed 75 testing gas well, 2 billion cubic meters of new production capacity was completed in advance. Now this field has produced over 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas, with a daily gas production of 3.6 million cubic meters.

CNPC implemented Wei well 204 in Weiyuan block of Sichuan, after the fracturing testing, the initial output was 165000 cubic meters per day, the production testing of Ning 201 well in Changning block was 150000 cubic meters per day. YS108H1-1 horizontal well in Zhaotong section of Yunnan got the industrial gas flow up to 200000 cubic meters per day. Changning-Weiyuan and Zhaotong section achieved the shale gas exploration breakthrough, and obtained more than 200 billion cubic meters of tertiary reserves .

According to the data, by the end of 2014, the petroleum enterprises and the bid winners completed 20000 km of two-dimensional seism, 2134 square km of three dimensional seism, 669 drilling wells (including 90 survey wells, 234 vertical wells, 345 horizontal wells), and 235 km pipeline laying with a total investment of 21.88 billion yuan. Among them, the annual investment in 2014 was 9.17 billion, which completed 2938 km of two-dimensional seism, 1841 square km of three dimensional seism, 162 drilling wells and 1.3 billion cubic meters of shale gas production.From 2012 to 2014, the production of shale gas was more than 1.5 billion cubic meters in total. In addition, it started the shale gas production capacity construction in Pengshui and Fuling of Chongqing, Changning-Weiyuan and Fushun-Yongchuan of Sichuan, Zhaotong of Yunnan, and Xishui of Guizhou.

Domestic exploration development technology

The shale gas drilling and completion technology research started late in China, but progress faster.

According to the report, at present, the shale gas exploration development technology and equipment in China has been basically localized, the cost of horizontal wells continue to fall, and the construction period is shortening. Through the technology introduction, absorption and problem tackling, China has generally mastered shale gas exploration development technology, such as shale gas geophysics, well drilling, well completion, fracturing and gas testing. It also mastered the ability of 3500 meters shallow horizontal well drilling and staged fracturing work, up to 22 sections of the horizontal well staged fracturing section, with a length of 2130 meters. The independent research and development product like the mobile drilling rig, model 3000 fracturing truck, and the shale gas "dessert" prediction software have achieved good application effect in the exploration development. The horizontal well drilling completion cycle is reduced from 150 to 70 days (46 days minimum), the cost of single horizontal well is decreased from 100 million to the range of 50 million to 70 million yuan.

The related supportive and encouraging policies were gradually implemented

Based on its resource management function, the Ministry of Land and Resources strives to promote the shale gas exploration development in accordance with the principle of"open market, orderly competition, innovation mechanism, coordinate interaction".Since 2009, it carried out the shale gas resource potential evaluation and favorable zones optimization and two rounds of shale gas exploration bidding. Approved by the State Council, it set the shale gas as independent minerals, opened the shale gas exploration mining market, released"Notice on strengthening shale gas exploration recoverable and supervision and administration", and issued"Technical specifications on shale gas reserves calculation and evaluation".

In order to track the the latest progress of shale gas bidding sections in our country timely and fully understand the present situation of the exploration development of shale gas bidding sections, Oil and Gas Resources Survey Center of China Geological Survey has organized the shale gas exploration development symposium for many times, introduced the progress in the 21 bidder blocks, exploration development achievements and the latest geological understanding, explored the problems about geology and engineering technology, brought forward the constructive suggestions. OGS set up the mechanism of enterprise alliance, and carried out co-research with the bid winners. According to varied requirements and special problems of the enterprises, OGS took the targeted expert consultation, answered questions for the enterprises and organized the technicians of bid winners to Chongqing for shale gas site inspection.

The whole industrial chain system was gradually improved

The construction of the shale gas whole industrial chain standard system provides scientific and effective standards for the shale gas industry in China.

In April 2014, the Ministry of Land and Resources issued and implemented "Technical specifications on shale gas reserves calculation and evaluation ", the first industry standard for shale gas reserves in China. In 3 to 5 years, China will build the whole industrial chain standard system from the shale gas resource evaluation, drilling and completion, well control, fracturing, environmental protection, ect. It will provide scientific and effective standard specification for the shale gas industry in China.

In November 2013, the National Energy Administration released "The determination method of the gas shale ", which was implemented in April 1, 2014.（Zhang Li）

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on November 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us.  For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Perspectives of China`s Non-metallic Minerals Industry

Source: www.mlr.gov.cn   Citation: www. www.zgkyb.com   Date: October 20, 2015

Resource Status

China is a big producer of nonmetallic minerals at present, playing an important role in nonmetallic minerals export in the international market.

Among the 92 kinds of nonmetallic minerals that have proven reserves, most of them have been developed and have a mass production.

The reserves of minerals such as graphite, gypsum, limestone, magnesite, bentonite and barite rank first in the world; talc, fluorite, wollastonite, asbestine ,mirabilite and others rank second; perlite, zeolite, boracite and others rank third; while kaolinite, bauxite, celestite and other minerals have a huge reserves as well.

Policy Support

Nonmetallic industry development plan has been listed into national level project.

The standards for admittance to industry of important competitive minerals (fluorite, graphite) development have come out organized by MIIT.

More and more local governments have formulated nonmetallic mineral development plans, some regions of abundant resources set up the metallic industry cities specially and give favorable policy supports.

For the governments of places having a basis of nonmetallic industry, they try to find a new model of nonmetallic resources development, concentrate resource exploit and supply, promote resource utilization rate, engineer the industry and make the industry a systematic one.

The governments are now obsoleting the capacity falling behind in the similar disorder competition and developing the large-scale companies.

Imports and Exports

The exports volume and price of part of nonmetallic minerals of China glide in different degrees in first half year, especially which of graphite, fluorbaryt, talc, magnesia, kaolin dropped considerably. The export volume of fluorbaryt decreases 20.26% and price decreases 10.14% compared to the same period, the export volume of graphite decreases 13.36% and price decreases 4.45%compared to the same period. The export volume of talc decreases 8.9% and price decreases 3.2% compared to the same period. The export volume of kaolin decreases 29.74% but price increases 31% compared to the same period.

In the first six months of 2015, the nonmetallic minerals import volume of China is basically flat compared to the same period, nevertheless the import price of nodular graphite, crystalline flake graphite, super fine talc powder is 2~3times of export price. The phenomenon of China nonmetallic minerals product import in high price but export in high price still exists, there is a certain gap between China nonmetallic minerals fine machining product and foreign product.

Economical Operation

In recent years, the profit of non-metallic mineral mines in China has dropped significantly, although the output value has slightly increased. The profit decreased from 14.37% at 2011 to 10.14% at 2014.

Green mine

Up to now, 59 building materials and non-metallic mines have been awarded the title of "Green Mine", with 3 in the first batch, 12 in the second batch, 18 in the third batch and 26 in the fourth batch. These mines manufacture products related to 13 non-metallic minerals such as limestone, kaoline, fluorite, talc, gypsum, calcite, and graphite. However, the development of the green mines are unbalanced. It`s mainly reflected in two aspects, one is that the industry is restrict to limited minerals resources without some important ores such as bentonite and siliceous-rock raw material, and the other one is the shortage of medium-small companies.

Market Demand

The traditional iron, construction, building material, chemical, refractory and light industries are undergoing depression, with a low demand. The demand and price of nonmetallic product has dropped greatly .

The market demand of nonmetallic minerals of different application filed grows more and more in first half year of 2015,at the same time, the mineral production and marketing volume, profit rate overall downward trend. The product demand and price of some traditional industry raw and auxiliary material decrease, taxes on enterprise go high, cost of production and labor increase daily, the homogeneous product competition between enterprises intensifies, emerging area still needs a developing process.

Total Level

The investment in fixed assets of mining industry in the first 6 months in 2015 is 52.61 billion RMB, decrease by 7.71% comparing to the same period, the investment of nonmetallic industry is 9.26 billion RMB, increased by 5.4% comparing to the same period.

The industrial added value above national scale has increased by 6.3%, while the nonmetallic industry has increased by 6.4%.

The total profit of mining industry in first half year of 2015 is 13.961 billion RMB, decreased by 58.8% comparing to the same period; coal mining and processing industry has decreased by 67%, petroleum and natural gas exploiting industry has decreased by 68.4%, nonmetallic industry has decreased by 6.7% and the melting and rolling processing industry of base metals has decreased by 22.4%.

Industry Issues

Recently, non-metallic mineral mines in China are facing many serious industry issues, such as the unbalance between the non-metallic mineral resources exploitation and protection; severe waste and destruction of the resources; over-mining of key ores; small and dispersive companies which result in low degree of industrial concentration and profits; low level of technology, especially for further processing; weak management and operational monitoring; local governments seek for high GDP rather than guide the operation of the mining companies scientifically and systematically which results in many useless and impractical programs.

Admittance Criterion

Graphite: The lowest limited for new and rebuilt programs of concentration of graphite is 20,000 tons per year, and the single product line should be not less than 5000 tons/yr, while that for microcrystalline graphite is 150,000 and 30,000 tons/yr with rate of recovery of >85%. The capacity of new and rebuilt programs of concentration of pure graphite should be higher than 5000 tons/yr with rate of final products higher than 85%. The annual capacity of new and rebuilt programs of concentration of expanded graphite should be higher than 5000 tons with rate of final products larger than 95% using electrolytic oxidation or acid impregnation processes. The annual capacity of new and rebuilt programs of concentration of flexible graphite should be higher than 1000 tons with rate of final products larger than 90% and width of equipment wider than 1000 mm using continuous expansion and molding technology.

Fluorite: Newly built mines should design safe, high-performance, and suitable mining methods and equipment based on their mining scheme, proven resources, and occurrence condition of ores. The daily capacity of fluorite should be higher than 100 tons assuming 300 working days per year. Mineral processing plant is required for mines with annual capacity of 30,000 tons or more. The rate of recovery for underground and opencast mining should be higher than 75% and 90% respectively. 80% is set up for lower limit of recovery rate for the concentration (associated ores and tailings gangue excluded).

High-alumina clay: Annual capacity of single product line of the companies related to concentration of high-alumina clay should be larger than 50,000 tons with lower limit of recovery rate of 80%. Annual capacity of high-alumina clay grog chamotte should not be less than 50,000 tons including lower capacity of single product line of 30,000 tons for rotary kiln, 20,000 tons for tunnel kiln, and 10,000 tons for shuttle and up-draft kilns. The rates of recovery for underground and opencast mining should be higher than 70% and 80%, respectively.（Zhang Li）

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on November 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us.  For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.

Range far your eye over long vistas-for the opening of CM2015

Source: www.zgkyb.com   Citation: www. www.zgkyb.com   Date: October 20, 2015

We should have the will to range far your eye over long vistas

——For the Opening of China Mining Congress and Expo 2015

Approved by the State Council of PRC, the China Mining Congress and Expo 2015 is holding from today to October 23 in Tianjin. This meeting is organized by the Ministry of Land and Resources of PRC, Tianjin Municipal People`s Government and China Mining Association. We wish this annual event a success.

As we all know, mining is an important and indispensable force in the global economy. It could be said that mining and mineral resources had contributed dedication for all the civilization, progress, achievements, material and spiritual wealth of human society today. It is also why this meeting is paid so much attention, which is in order to promote a sustainable development of mining exchanges and cooperation between China and the world .

In the current, global mining is in downturn because of the global economic downturn and structural adjustment and the geopolitical change. In the next few years, the global economic recovery would be multi-layered and complex，so the mining would not be converting turnaround and should be in a period of deep change.

After 30 years of rapid development, China`s economic growth slowed down gradually since the beginning of the third quarter of 2010. GDP growth continuous declined and the trend is not yet stable. Despite the Chinese government adopted a series of important initiatives to promote economic development following the deepen reforms, the economy have indeed shown some new and good momentum of development, but still can not catch up with the growth momentum just as in the past. Release the reform bonus should be a gradual process.

Under its influence, the demand of Chinese mineral products slowed down in recent years. The supply of large-scale mineral products, especially coals, was really over-sufficient. What even worse, developing rate of other newborn economics happened to be down and differentiated apparently. In overall view, there are no effective economics to support the global need after China in short time, and global mineral demand will keep weak. This duration is predicted to last for several years.

But fortunately, global mineral industry is in the stage of "Four Period Superposition":

The first one is brewing period of mineral revival and recruit. Although the mineral revival cannot come true in short time, but the experts think that energy and resource demand in long term will be better and mining is looking for the opportunities and being ready to embrace next thriving.

The second one is incubation period of mineral technology innovation. Facing severe situation and competition in market, mineral enterprises and companies enlarges exploration technology research, intelligent mining, efficient mining technology and management innovation with high spirit, to promote their development.

The third one is game period of mineral policy adjustment. Many resource-type countries adjust their policy strategies and decrease the investment barrier to promote domestic mineral development.

The fourth one is reforming period of energy and resource management structure, In recent years, global energy and resource pattern changes a lot, but its structure formed 40 years ago which could not adapt to nowadays patterns. So reform has come into agreement in the whole world. 

These features are not only providing the possibility for the global mining industry out of the woods, but also for China`s mining industry turn adversity into opportunities. In this regard, we should seize the opportunity and take corresponding measures.

We should stable public geological survey investment and promote adjusting the structure of geological survey work. In the current, global mining is in downturn and the exploration investment is declining. We should take full consideration to the geological work which plays an advanced role in national economic development. It is recommend that we should deploy early and make the public geological work play a "skillfully deflected the question" role and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of social capital investment. That is how we preparing for the next round of the mining boom.

We should strengthen science and technology, management and system innovation, increase the R&D investment. Currently, it is in the incubation period of global mining technology innovation ，rapid development of modern earth observation and detection means have strengthened the ability of the geological survey work and reach range. We must improve the occasion, and take innovation as eternal power to promote mining recovery and sustainable development.

We should accelerate the reform of geological prospecting units, establish and improve mineral exploration market. After the classification reform of geological prospecting units, we should offer market-oriented guidance, support and training to the separated part and make it a truly independent market entity. For guiding and stimulating the market vitality and promoting the mineral exploration market constantly improve, meanwhile we should provide policy support just like subsidies or tax credits appropriately to some risk exploration investment entity.

We should move forward on reform of administration policy on mineral resources, and carry out related policy to push forward mineral exploration. At the same time, we should move forward on adjustment on industry intensifying, scale-up, and structure-in-depth strategy, and transition of development concept. And therefore, we should follow the strategy of the central government by deepening the reforms in an all-round way and ruling the country by law, and let the market play its critical rule on resource allocation, and boost the market-oriented reform of the mineral resource, and strengthen the effort on adjusting the structure of mining industry.

We should continue our stepping out strategy, learn from the experience, and create a better impression of Chinese mining industry. We should try our best to find out some high-quality resource, and have a good knowledge of international convention as soon as possible, and regulate the behavior of the industry, and try to improve the management ability of the enterprise, and take more social responsibility, in order to actively construct a new order of the mining management around the world.

Batten down the hatches, we should face actively the conflict of the new around international trade regulation. Facing the fact that U.S. and some other countries have already been taking some advantage on regulation by coming to an agreement(TPP), we should deal with an open mind, and on the other hand, learn from the past on trade, and foster some seeded players who can participate trade around the world in all directions, during the process of which we push hard on bilateral and multilateral trade agreement. We should foresee future tendency by analyzing trade division around the world and industry competition. During the time when we improve our capability of dealing with conflict between countries on economic issue, we should participate actively the formulation of new regulation on international trade on the basis of updated version of China South Korea free trade area, China-Australia free trade area, and China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations free trade area.

We should study in depth the tendency of energy and mineral resource, and participate actively in governing the energy and mineral resource around the world. The price of energy and mineral resource derives from its supply and demand relationship in the new century because of effects of multiple factors. China is the first energy consuming and production country, and also the second crude oil importing country, at the same time, it is also a high consumption and production country of mineral resource, and plays an important role in the energy resource field. Thus, we should participate actively in reforming the energy and mineral resource governing structure, and set up some new platform for energy and mineral resource government, in order to push it move forward to the fair and justifying tendency, as well as maintain safety of energy and mineral resource of China even the whole world.

Each country will have show time of his own on the fantastic stage around the world. Above all, harmony of benefit between countries is an eternal theme. TPP is the case, so does the collaboration and development of the mining industry all over the world.（The Editorial）

About CHINA MINING

Since first held in 1999, the scope and influence of CHINA MINING has grown rapidly year by year. As a global mining summit forum and exhibition, CHINA MINING Congress and Expo has become one of the world’s top mining events, and one of the world’s largest mining exploration, development and trading platforms, covering all aspects of the whole mining industry chain, including geological survey, exploration and development, mining rights trading, mining investment and financing, smelting and processing, mining techniques and equipment, mining services, etc. playing an active promotion role in creating exchange opportunities and enhancing mutual cooperation between domestic and foreign mining enterprises.

CHINA MINING Congress and Expo 2015 will be held at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin on November 20^th-23^rd, 2015. We invite you to join the event and to celebrate the 17^th anniversary of CHINA MINING with us.  For more information about CHINA MINING 2015, please visit: www.chinaminingtj.org.