Status of Lead Resources in China

In the global context, China boasts rich reserve of lead resources, up till 2009 China’s reserve of lead resources ranks second in the world,accounting for 15.19% of global total reserve.By the end of 2009, there were 1634 lead mines nationwide, up by 127 over the figure in 2008.China’s lead extractable reserve, basic reserve and proved reserve are respectively 6,425,000 tonnes, 13,401,000 tonnes and 48,511,100 tonnes. The extractable reserve and basic reserve are down by 10.31% and 1.43% respectively than that in 2008, the proved reserve was up by 6.65% than that in 2008, in which there are 3,330,000 tonnes of newly added reserve. The provinces (regions) with relatively huge increase in proved reserve include: Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Jiangxi. China’s lead resources are mainly distributed in 10 provinces (regions)including Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Qinghai, Gansu, Hunan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian, total reserve is 5,808,000 tonnes, accounting for 90.40% of the nationwide total reserve; basic reserve totals 11,493,000 tonnes , accounting for 85.76% of nationwide reserve; other provinces (regions)have relatively little lead resources.

China is a big producer of lead concentrate and refined lead. Since 1990 till today, the production and consumption of lead concentrate and refined lead have shown an overall growing trend. The production of lead concentrate and refined lead respectively grew from 363,900 tonnes and 296,500 tonnes in 1990 to 1,851,500 tonnes and 4,199,400 tonnes in 2010; wherein, in 2010 the national production of lead ore was 1,851,500 tonnes (metal content), up by 15.42% over that in 2009. The production of refined lead was 4,199,400 tonnes,up by 11.30%, in which mineral lead was 2,836,500 tonnes, up by 14.60% over that in the previous year.

China’s major lead producing provinces (regions) include: Inner Mongolia, Sichuan,Guangdong, Yunnan, and Hunan; the annual production of these five provinces (regions) in 2010 were all above 100,000 tonnes (metal content), accounting for 62.53% of nationwide total lead production. Wherein, Hunan, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan showed fast growth in production, with growth rate reaching 84.05%,48.05% and 29.35% respectively. China’s major refined-lead producing provinces (regions)include: Henan, Hunan, Anhui, Yunnan,Guangxi, Guangdong, and Jiangsu. In 2010,total production of these provinces accounts for 84.49% of nationwide total production.

China is a big power in the consumption of refined lead. Since 2005, China’s consumption of refined lead surpassed that of the USA to become the largest consumption nation of refined lead in the world. According to statistics, in 2009 China’s consumption of refined lead was 3,650,000 tonnes, up by 15.87% over that in the previous year. Major lead consumption sectors include lead acid battery, lead oxide, lead alloy and lead profile, and other lead products;the percentages of the above consumption usage are 75%, 13%, 6%, and 6% respectively.

China is a big producer of refined lead in the world. With the growth in the production capacity, the supply of raw materials for domestic lead smelting experiences chronic shortage, and needs to depend on import to meet domestic demand. In 2010, China continued to show a shortage in the supply of raw materials for lead smelting, lead ore and its concentrate still showed a net import; but the import volume declined slightly compared with that in the previous year. Whole year import was 1,603,796 tonnes, down by 0.06% on YOY basis. The major import source country of lead ore and its concentrate include: USA, Peru, Australia,Russian Federation, Iran, Germany, etc. In 2010, China’s lead ore and concentrate imported from these countries accounted for 63.83% of total import.

Although at present China’s lead resource reserve occupies an advantageous position in the world, China’s lead resource status is inferior to that in other countries. China’s lead mine shows an overall pattern of large number of barren mines and few rich mines, the sum of lead and zinc grade of mines is generally between 6%-10%, mines with 10% above grade only account for 15% of total reserve, whereas the grade of overseas mines is generally higher,with the sum of led and zinc grade mostly above 10%; mine varieties are complicated,there is few number of single lead or zinc ores,on most occasions they exist in the form of coexisting and associated ingredients.

In 2009, the State Council published “Nonferrous Metal Industrial Adjustment and Rejuvenation Plan”, whose planning period is 2009-2011. This plan maps out the schedule to phase out 600,000 tonnes of backward zinc smelting capacity, and encourage copper, aluminum,lead & zinc manufacturers with substantial strength to organize restructuring through various forms, in order to achieve scale operation and group operation, and improve industry competitiveness. It supports large key enterprises to implement cross-region M&A and restructuring, and restructuring within regional scope and restructuring among corporate groups. It also sets up the target to increase the percentage of top ten lead domestic manufactures in total national production to 60%.