Discoveries of rare and valuable mineral resources, while often making instant headlines, tend to take years to pay off – and that is happening now with a high-purity quartz that is of strategic importance in China’s hi-tech and industrial ambitions.
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Five years after a mineable source was found domestically for the first time, the quartz in question has been formally identified by the Ministry of Natural Resources as China’s 174th mineral for exploitation.
Owing to a lack of discovered domestic reserves, China heavily relies on imports of the rare quartz. But the discovery of two domestic sources, in 2020 and 2021, opened the door to Tuesday’s formal mineral designation that could yield more such discoveries.
For industrial mining, the establishment of new minerals can effectively promote mineral exploration and mining, the establishment of mining rights and social capital investment, according to Xinhua. It added that the last two minerals to receive such a designation – shale gas and natural gas hydrate – then underwent rapid exploration and mining.
In the case of these unique quartz rocks, their purity is so high that they can be processed to produce silicon of at least 99.995 per cent purity, meeting the application requirements of semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, CCTV quoted the ministry as saying.
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And now, with the new mineral designation, the search for more sources across the country will intensify, and major exploration projects will be expedited, the ministry said, adding that it will also help set up quality standards and exploration methods to better manage and preserve the resource.