TNN
 
Beijing, Jun 29: More than half of India's exports to China are iron ore. Beijing is also heavily dependent on supplies from Australia, Japan and South Korea to feed its high speed industrial growth. But the situation may change dramatically in future with Chinese geologists discovering Asia's largest iron ore deposit in northwest China.

The Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources Exploration in Liaoning Province has announced it has found an iron ore deposit with an estimated reserve of more than 3 billion tonnes. It will take some time before any of the ores is actually mined but it is good news for the planners in the National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing, who maps the long-term trajectory of development.

The iron content in the ores, which is an important aspect for the steel industry, ranges between 25% and 62%, the local government said. Apparently, the quantum of low-grade iron ore is higher than the high grade ones at 60-62% per cent. But China has already impressed upon the world with its capacity to upgrade low-grade iron ore through certain industrial processes.

"The deposit can be exploited for more than 50 years," Yu Wenli, head of the bureau in Liaoning was quoted as saying in the official media. "We found high-grade iron ore even at a depth of 2,015 metres," he said. But most of deposit is available at depths of 1,200 metres to 1,860 metres and spanning an area of 4 km by 3 km, The iron ore deposit is a mixture of magnetite and hematite.

The Benxi municipal government hailed it as "Asia's largest deposit". China's minister of land and resources Xu Shaoshi has urged the local authorities to start exploitation "as quickly as possible". News of the discovery has given a boost to share prices of steel makers like Baosteel, Angang Steel and Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group.

Going by its current level of usage, the deposit is enough to satisfy China's requirement of iron ore for 25 years, sources said. The province has yielded good quantities of iron ore in the past.