Conference : China mining 2002
venue: Chongqing, China
The Strategy of Geological Work of The China Geological Survey and Its Promotion to Mining Industry
ZHOU Jiahuan
Chief Geologist of The China Geological Survey
October 2002

　　Ladies and Gentlemen:

　　I am honored to give a speech here, introducing the strategic adjustment of the national geological work in China, and the guiding principles of the national geological work with respect to the commercial mineral exploration and development. In the past few years, the geological administration system in China underwent significant changes. As the organizing and executive institution of the national geological work in China, the China Geological Survey is gradually adjusting its work deployment, to satisfy the economic development, especially the demand of the developing mining industry. During this meeting, we are glad to be able to exchange our viewpoints with the representatives from various fields such as international financial organizations, foreign governmental agencies and mining corporations, to seek the best way of integrating the public welfare geological work with commercial geological work, so that the national geological work will be able to provide better service to the social and economic development and mining industry. Bellow, I am going to introduce briefly three aspects, i.e. the mandate of the China Geological Survey, the arrangements of mineral exploration, and the fields of public service.

　　1. The current situation of the national geological work system in China

　　Ever since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China till the early 90s, the geological work in China was mainly carried out within the socialist planning economy system, running on the scheme mingling the public welfare geological work with commercial works. Take the mineral exploration and development for instance, the state acted as both the investor and customer. As a developing country, especially at the initial stage of its economic development, it was necessary for China to emphasize its governmental role in macroscopic adjusting and monitoring, to coordinate in financing and technology, and to strengthen the construction of its geological work as a fundamental industry, which will effectively push forward the economic construction and social development of China. Up to the year 2001, totally 171 kinds of mineral resources had been found in China, of which 156 kinds of mineral resources have proven reserves; more than 200,000 deposits and occurrences had been found, and the total reserve of the mineral resources ranks the third in the world. In 2001, the entire production of the solid mineral commodities surpassed 4 billion metric tons, the total production value of the mining industry amounts to 479 billion RMB yuans, productions of the three main commodities, namely coal, steel and cement rank the topmost in the world respectively, production of petroleum and chemical industry products rank the first rate in the world.

　　However, compared with the acceleration of the national economic development and the speed-up of the globalization of resources, the run-on scheme of the geological work within the planning economic system has obviously lagged behind the demand of situation. Since 1990s, Chinese government has initiated a series of gradual and thorough reformations on the management system and run-on scheme of the geological work.

　　In April 1999, the State Council enacted the reformation scheme on the management system of the geological exploration teams, and the main part of the teams, about 1.1 million would be dispatched to provinces, and would be managed as enterprises. Some part of the geological institutions would be directly organized as enterprises or entered the enterprise groups.

　　In July 1999, the Ministry of Land and Resources set up the China Geological Survey. In 2001, the reformations were furthered, and totally 27 geological survey and research institutions were grouped into the China Geological Survey to solidify and perfect the national geological investigation team, which included the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey, Aero Geophysics Survey and Remote Sensing Center, etc..

　　The China Geological Survey is directly affiliated to the Ministry of Land and Resources, and is mainly in charge of organizing and carrying out the nationwide basic and public welfare geological survey and strategic exploration of mineral resources, providing the basic geological information for the economic and social development, and offering services to the society.

　　In 2001, totally 15,800 employees from 101 of geological units, which included the direct affiliations of the China Geological Survey, the provincial geological surveys, and the other exploration units were participating the nationwide geological survey under the organization and supervision of the China Geological Survey. The work covered the basic geological work (including regional geological mapping, regional geophysical and geochemical measurements and remote sensing survey), hydrological, engineering and environmental geological survey, the exploration for strategic mineral resources and the scientific research as well.

　　2. The main content of the national exploration for strategic mineral resources

　　In 2002, at the central government’s meeting on population, resources and environment, General Secretary Jiang Zemin definitely pointed out, “The work of the national land and resources, should focus at promoting the guarantee ability for a sustainable development, to establish a new optimized mechanism of resource allocation, which should combine the governmental management with the market operation, to strengthen the investigation, planning and management of the resources from overall aspects, and to improve the protection and reasonable utilization level for the resources incessantly. To strengthen the investigation and evaluation of resources, and to serve for the economic development and social progress; to strengthen the geological exploration, and to make new breakthroughs in the exploration for strategic mineral resources.”

　　Following the principles that national geological work should be separated from commercial geological work, the exploration for strategic mineral resources, which is financed by the state, is aimed to safeguard the national economy, and improve the guarantee ability for a sustainable economy. With respect to the work deployment, the investigation and assessment of the key mineral resources in the main metallogenic tracts in China should be emphasized. The potential of the resources should be made clear, to provide the basic data for the national planning and management of the mineral resources, to provide the priority areas and mineral localities for further exploration for the enterprises, and to expedite the development of mining industries and economy. As far as the work extent is concerned, the exploration for strategic mineral resources currently should be focused on regional mineral resource assessment, reconnaissance and partly prospection, whereas the more detailed exploration should fall into the category of commercial exploration.

　　At present, the exploration for strategic mineral resources highlights the copper, high grade lead-zinc, high grade tin, high-grade manganese and uranium in the major metallogenic belts such as the Three River area in southwestern China, Tianshan area, the area along the Qinghai-Tibet railway and the Nanling area. Special emphases will be given to areas with significantly high potential for large or super large mineral deposits. We are expecting to make new breakthroughs in mineral exploration and to provide more mineral resource bases for the mining industry.

　　We have seen the progress in mineral exploration, which have made substantial contributions to the mining industry of China. Statistics indicates that, during the period from the year 1999 to 2001, totally 283 mineral occurrences have been found, which included 48 large-scale ones and 69 moderate-scale ones. The exploration achievements are marked by discovery of large or super large copper, silver, tin, potash and uranium deposits. Especially outstanding are the following discoveries:
　　(1) Copper deposit in the eastern Tianshan area in Xinjiang;
　　(2) Tin- multi-metallic deposit in the Nanling area;
　　(3) Silver-tin multi-metallic deposit in the island-arc belt in Yidun, Sichuan;
　　(4) Silver- multi-metallic deposit in the Nanping-Baiyangping area, Yunnan;
　　(5) In situ extractable sandstone-type uranium deposit in north China;
　　(6) Potash deposit in the Luobupo basin, Xinjiang;
　　(7) Gold-silver deposit in Qingchengzi, Liaoning;
　　(8) Offshore energy and mineral resources.

　　3. The service of the national geological work toward mining industry

　　As the national geological survey institution, the China Geological Survey always is under the main direction of serving for the development of the mining industry in China. We are perfecting and regulating the content of our service from such aspects as follows.

　　1) With respect to the deployment and content of the exploration work for strategic mineral resources, we should sufficiently consider their linkups with the commercial exploration works, emphasize the technological and economic evaluation of deposits, including consideration of locality, quality, size and exploitation conditions, so as to improve the economic and social significance of the strategic mineral assessment. In selecting the key areas for exploration, we should take sufficient consideration of exploitation conditions, and the possibility to enter the commercial exploration.

　　2) Create condition, we should actively provide the basic geological data which is demanded by the commercial exploration, improve the data-sharing mechanism, provide more geological information service for the enterprises, both domestic and overseas, so that their risks in exploration could be reduced.

　　Compilation of geological maps is a routine work of the China Geological Survey. So far, the compilation of 1:500,000 and 1:200,000 national geological map have been completed, and databases of geochemistry, geophysics and mineral deposits have constructed. Many of these are in great demand from the mineral exploration, which will be gradually released in accordance with the government regulations.
Meanwhile, the China Geological Survey is planning to establish the National Geological Data Center, to provide a faster, overall, and high-quality service for the public. This center is destined to collect the geological data collected in the past decades, and provide, through network, public services.

　　3) To better serve the domestic and overseas enterprises, the roles of scientific and technological research will be well recognized. We hope to carry out extensive scientific cooperation with other countries. Till now, the China Geological survey has built up some scientific cooperative links with some foreign geological surveys, or research institutions, and has done some successful cooperative work. From now on, we will strengthen and broaden the cooperation further.

　　The global geological work and mining industry are entering a new era. The national geological work in China is actively adjusting its pace to adapt to the new situation following the globalization of mining industry, and is aimed to make more contributions to serve the mining industry.

Thanks all!