China discovered nearly 5 billion tons of iron ore deposits in 2009, chief engineer with the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said Friday.
The deposits were discovered in provinces including northeastern Liaoning, northern Hebei, eastern Shandong and Anhui, and southwestern Sichuan, said Zhang Hongtao, MLR chief engineer.
The total discovered deposits included an iron ore deposit with an estimated reserve of more than 3 billion tons in northeast China's Liaoning province and 1 billion tons of verified iron deposits in Hebei province, said Zhang.
He said the 1 billion tons of verified reserves in Hebei was easy to mining with their shallow depth.
The reserves in Hebei have been put under a national construction plan and would become an important iron ore source to China's iron industry once put into production, Zhang said. |
