en.Wedoany.com Reported - Recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China officially issued the mining rights and mining license for the Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine in Xinghe County, Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to Inner Mongolia Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., marking the official entry of this super-large molybdenum mine into the substantive development phase. The Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine will be developed using open-pit mining first, followed by underground mining. The project's mining and processing design scale is 16.5 million tons of raw ore per year, classifying it as a super-large molybdenum mine. The total project investment is nearly 10 billion yuan, and the open-pit mining project is expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2028. Once fully operational, it is projected to generate an annual output value of nearly 10 billion yuan, driving the integrated development of the entire industrial chain encompassing mining, beneficiation, smelting, and deep processing.
The Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine is located in Xinghe County, Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It is a super-large porphyry molybdenum deposit with substantial resource reserves and promising development prospects. The mine contains up to 1.035 billion tons of molybdenum ore, with a metal content of 1.089 million tons, and includes multiple valuable elements such as molybdenum, lead, zinc, tungsten, gold, silver, and sulfur. Its resource reserves rank among the top for similar deposits in China, characterized by shallow burial depth, thick ore bodies, large reserves, and ease of extraction, offering outstanding resource endowment advantages. The earliest exploration of the mine dates back to 2016, when Inner Mongolia Mining first obtained the mineral resource exploration permit for the Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine in February of that year. The exploration report was reviewed and filed in 2021, and after nine years of exploration and feasibility studies, it was converted into mining rights. According to the review opinion from the Strategic Research Center of Oil and Gas Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources, as of November 30, 2021, the verified retained molybdenum metal content was 1.0893 million tons, with an average ore body burial depth of approximately 60.56 meters and a planar projection area of 2.22 square kilometers. This includes recoverable resources such as associated tungsten, gold, lead-zinc, and accompanying silver and sulfur. Based on resource occurrence conditions, the initial open-pit mining service life is determined to be 45 years (including a 2-year construction period), followed by a transition to underground mining with a production scale of 8.25 million tons per year, resulting in a total project service life of 72 years.
The project owner, Inner Mongolia Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., was established in 2011 as a wholly state-owned enterprise directly under the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, primarily engaged in the exploration, development, and management of non-ferrous metal resources. Inner Mongolia Mining Resources Investment Holding Co., Ltd., as its subsidiary, is specifically responsible for the exploration, development, and subsequent utilization of the Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine.
Regarding the project's environmental impact assessment (EIA), on March 30, 2026, the Department of Ecology and Environment of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region accepted the mine's EIA document, prepared by BGRIMM Technology Group, which is currently in the public disclosure phase. Additionally, the project has completed multiple preliminary bidding processes, including cultural relic surveys, preliminary design plan preparation, and specialized hydrogeological surveys, laying the foundation for construction commencement.
The successful acquisition of the mining license for the Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine represents one of the key projects in China's mineral resources sector in recent years involving the conversion of exploration rights to mining rights. The advancement of this project is expected to improve China's molybdenum resource supply landscape. Molybdenum is an important strategic metal widely used in steel metallurgy, aerospace, nuclear industry, and new energy batteries. According to data from the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, China is the world's largest molybdenum producer and consumer, with national molybdenum concentrate production reaching approximately 285,000 tons in 2025. The formal development of the Caosiyao Molybdenum Mine will provide long-term, stable new production capacity for domestic molybdenum resource supply, while injecting new momentum into the transformation and upgrading of the local mineral resource industry.
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