BEIJING – A huge deposit of silver was discovered in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, in northern China, the local department of Land and Natural Resources claimed on Saturday.
According to Xinhua, the state-owned news agency, the deposit contains over 100 million tonnes of silver ore.
The deposit is located in Shuangjianzi Mountain in Inner Mongolia, and it is very much possible that there are more deposits in the depths and surroundings of the place, the Xinhua reported.
However, it wasn’t clear from the media report whether that number refers to resources or reserves, but it must be resources, since Chinese silver reserves currently only stand at 39,000 tonnes, states the US Geological Survey.
Accurate mining statistics are notoriously difficult to pin down from China, which often inflates them.
The USGS puts China in fifth place in terms of silver production and reserves, behind the United States, Australia, Bolivia and Chile. The largest silver producer is Mexico, at 5,600 tonnes, and the country with the largest reserves is Peru, at 120,000 tonnes.
In 2015, Kitco pegged China as producing 128,603,000 ounces of silver, primarily as a byproduct of lead and zinc mining. The two primary silver mines are Canada-based Silvercorp’s (NYSE,TSX:SVM) Ying mine, which produced 6.5 million ounces in 2017, and the Shizishan mine owned by China Polymetallic, which produced 2.4 million ounces in 2013 (current production numbers unavailable).
In addition to jewelry, today this precious metal is in great demand in the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors.
