China Online | Oct 6, 2000

BEIJING -- The largest copper reserve in China was discovered in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to Jiang Chengsong, vice minister of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources.

The excavation of this copper reserve, which holds millions of tons of copper deposits, will be of great significance for developing China's western regions.

According to the September 28 Zhongguo Xinwen She (China News Service), the newly discovered copper reserve is located in the Tianshan Mountain area of eastern Xinjiang, south of the Turpan-Hami Basin.

Preliminary assessments of the copper belt in Tuwu-Yandong, Chihu, Ling Kuang, and Yamansu have indicated that these ore bodies are typically 800 to 1,400 meters long (2,625 to 4,593 feet) and 50 to 200 meters wide (164 to 656 feet). Test drilling has indicated a maximum depth of 380 meters (1,247 feet) for the copper deposits. The quality of the copper is between 1 percent and 1.5 percent in purity, the story added.

China is relatively poor in copper resources, which can only meet half of China's needs, Jiang stated. As a result, China imports more than 500,000 tons of copper annually. The new copper reserves will lead to the creation of a copper production base in Xinjiang, and will particularly help with transporting gas from western to eastern China.

Some prominent foreign mining companies, such as Billiton and Rio Tinto, have repeatedly expressed their desire to explore copper mining in the Tianshan region.