China has made a major breakthrough in copper and gold exploration in the Chating region of Xuancheng, Anhui province, with the discovery expected to establish a large-scale resource base in East China, the Ministry of Natural Resources said on Tuesday.
Located in the hinterland of the Yangtze River Delta, the deposit lies beneath a volcanic basin — a geological setting long considered unlikely to host large porphyry copper deposits.
The main ore body measures about 1.2 kilometers in length and 1.1 km in width, with its maximum apparent thickness in a single borehole reaching 1,371 meters.
Preliminary estimates indicate that the potential copper resources are comparable to those of several large-scale copper mines, each with more than 500,000 metric tons, while the potential gold resources exceed those of more than a dozen large-scale gold mines, each with more than 20 tons.
The deep ore bodies have not yet been fully explored, leaving significant potential for further increases in the estimated resources and reserves, the ministry said.
Associated minerals, including silver and sulfur, can also be comprehensively recovered and utilized. Once developed, the site is expected to become a super-large copper-gold production base in East China, according to the ministry.
Tang Juxing, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering who leads the project, described the discovery as “a landmark achievement in mineral exploration during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), getting the work off to a good start”.
Tang, who is also a researcher at the Institute of Mineral Resources of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, said the deposit is “a very rich porphyry-type copper-gold deposit, especially with a very high gold content”.
Lin Bin, deputy director of the deep earth prediction and potential evaluation research office at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and the on-site technical lead, said the team’s priority is to assist the enterprise in increasing reserves and starting production as soon as possible.
Achieving these goals would significantly boost copper and gold self-sufficiency in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the eastern economic belt, helping safeguard the nation’s strategic resource supply, Lin said.
“Once completed, it could supply copper and gold directly to smelting and processing industries in East China, cutting long-distance transport costs and reducing reliance on imports,” he said. “Associated minerals like silver and sulfur can also be recovered, turning one mine into multiple outputs and making it a key resource hub for the region.”
The breakthrough also represents a major theoretical advance, challenging the long-held view in international geology that large porphyry copper deposits are difficult to form in extensional volcanic basins.
The findings confirmed the potential for large-scale copper-gold mineralization along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. They also identified volcanic basins in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces as having similar exploration prospects and opened new pathways for mineral exploration in regions with thick volcanic rock cover in East China.
Lin said the country plans to carry out comprehensive geological exploration in these areas during the 15th Five-Year Plan.
The discovery is also the result of coordinated efforts by central authorities, local governments and enterprises, Lin said.
The Anhui provincial natural resources bureau began allocating fiscal funds in 2008 for geological surveys of the Chating deposit, and a survey report was submitted in 2018.
In 2025, the exploration rights were publicly listed for transfer, and Tibet Yulong Copper Co won the rights with a bid of 8.6 billion yuan ($1.27 billion) in October, setting a record for the highest single mining rights transaction in Anhui.
Earlier this year, the ministry included the Chating exploration project among its key projects for 2026. Natural resources authorities at the provincial, municipal and district levels proactively provided services, while the company completed 71 boreholes totaling almost 100,000 meters of drilling in just four months.
“China now has a huge demand for copper. While our reliance on imports remains high, domestic exploration potential is enormous,” Lin said.
He added that the total identified copper resources in Xizang are expected to exceed 70 million tons this year, with the aim of reaching 100 million tons by the end of 2030.
China Daily
