The Qinghai Magnesium Project under construction. Magontec’s plant and equipment will be installed in the cast house.

MINCO Silver is continuing efforts to obtain environmental approval and permitting before seeking a mining licence for Fuwan Silver Project in Guangdong Province. As part of this process the company’s Chinese subsidiary Foshan Minco hosted a site visit for officers from Guangdong Environment Protection Administration (EPA) and has had continuous discussions on the EIA approval with various government agencies.

THE establishment of a joint venture company for exploration and development of gold prospects in the prospective Daxinganling (DXAL) region of Heilongjiang province has reached its final phase. The JV will be between gold mining exploration and advisory company China Shouguan Mining Corporation and the Daxinganling government.

MINCO Gold Corporation is drilling at the Baimashi North target in the Yejiaba region of Gansu Province. The drilling program, consisting of 1200 metre core drilling in six holes, is designed to test a target area with strong gold anomalism.

NEWLY Hong Kong listed company Hengxing Gold Holding, a business majority owned by Chinese billionaire KE Xiping, has installed an additional vertical impact crusher at the Gold Mountain project in Xinjiang region. The crusher is expected to improve the gold recovery rate at the project by reducing the size of fine crushed ore.

THERE has been a significant gain in measured and indicated mineral resources at Silvercorp Metals’ Ying silver-lead-zinc mining district in Henan Province. An updated NI 43-101 Technical Report reveals a 52% increase in tonnage and 12% and 8% increases respectively in contained silver and lead resources when compared to the 2012 Technical Report.

CHINA Magnesium Corporation has started semi-coke and magnesium production at its Pingyao operations in Shanxi Province, southwest of Beijing. This follows completion, installation and testing of the first semi-coke cracker at the plant, which enabled the company to use waste semi-coke gas instead of using the coal-to-gas facilities as originally envisaged when the plant was built.

Drilling at Eldorado Gold Corporation's White Mountain property in Jilin Province has identified a new, deeper zone of high-grade mineralization down-plunge of the current resource in the Central Zone. The exploration drilling has also extended the existing Central Zone resource on the 200 metre level.

The Henan Provincial Department of Land and Resources has renewed the mining permit for Silvercorp Metals’ SGX mine at the Ying Mining District for another 10 years to September 14, 2024.

Far East Energy Corporation, the US-listed company that operates the Shouyang Coalbed Methane (CBM) Production Sharing Contract (PSC) in Shanxi Province, has received approval for its ODP ‘Road Pass’ for the Area A section of the Shouyang PSC.

Clean TeQ has signed a Heads of Agreement with the Shanghai Investigation, Design and Research Institute (SIDRI) for the deployment of Clean TeQ’s unique proprietary water treatment technologies in China.

CITIC Global Trade (Shanghai) Co Ltd (CGT), the subsidiary of CITIC Securities, China’s largest investment bank, has signed an MoU with Impala Terminals, the global terminals operator, to create a joint venture warehousing, logistics, freight forwarding and terminals business in China, working to international standards of security and operating processes.

GOBIMIN has received approximately US$5.4 million in cash representing the remaining 50% balance for the area adjacent to Yanxi Copper Property in Xinjiang province upon obtaining the mining licence of the new area. Along with the first 50% received in December 2012, the company has received a total of approximately US$10.8 million for the new area.

CHINA’S largest listed gold producer, Zijin Mining Group, says its profit in the first half of 2014 was held back by lower metal prices and higher labour costs. It posted net profit of 1.11 billion yuan (US$178.7 million), which equated to a 1.3% rise, while revenue declined 7.7% to 24 billion yuan.

Latrobe Magnesium Limited has dispatched via air freight a 600kg treated fly ash sample from the Latrobe Valley in the Australian state of Victoria to China for processing through a commercially operating magnesium plant. Results are expected by mid-October.

Vancouver-based China Gold International Resources Corp, a gold and copper producer with mines in Inner Mongolia and Tibet, is likely to make an acquisition by the end of next year, according to a senior company executive. 

GobiMin has started its 2014 drilling campaign at the Sawayaerdun Gold Project in Xinjiang with about 237 metres completed during June. The company has reduced the 2014 program to about 6500 metres in light of the current market situation.

An updated NI 43-101 Technical Report for Silvercorp Metals’ Ying silver-lead-zinc mining district in Henan Province reveals a significant gain in measured and indicated mineral resources.

Majestic Gold is working toward executing a revised development scenario at its Songjiagou Gold Mine in Shandong Province which provides for daily production of up to 7400 tonnes utilizing existing infrastructure. The scenario was put forward in the August 2013 SRK Consulting (China) preliminary economic assessment (PEA).

Minco Gold Corporation’s wholly-owned subsidiary Minco Mining (China) Co has entered into an agreement with a private Chinese individual to sell the Gold Bull Mountain project in Hunan province for total consideration of RMB 7 million (about Can$1.2 million).