Members of the third exploration team are on the mining exploration journey.
Lithium is the lightest metal element in nature and is referred to as "white petroleum" due to its green energy attributes. As the world's largest producer of electric vehicles, China's demand for lithium resources is growing daily, while China's proven lithium ore resources only account for 7% of the global supply, with about 70% dependent on imports. Against this backdrop, the recent discovery of nearly a million tons of a super-large lithium mine in Yajiang County, located in the western Sichuan region, has sparked heated discussion.
During the transmission of this "good news," there have been some questions. For example, Yajiang lithium mine is touted as the "largest single deposit in Asia," but is it really worthy of the title? Is there a significant difference between the estimated resources and the actual output of the mine? Will the discovery of the million-ton lithium mine continue to drive down lithium prices?
To address these issues, the "Science and Technology Daily" conducted field interviews with Yue Dabin, the person in charge of the Yajiang lithium mine exploration and the director of the Science and Technology Innovation Center of the Third Geological Brigade of the Sichuan Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resource Exploration and Development, and Li Guangming, a member of the comprehensive exploration technology achievement review expert group for the Yajiang lithium mine, who is also the deputy chief engineer of the Chengdu Geological Survey Center of the China Geological Survey.
"Science and Technology Daily": In recent years, other regions in the country have also discovered million-ton super-large lithium mines. Compared with these, what makes the Yajiang lithium mine different? Does it truly deserve the title of "Asia's largest"?
Li Guangming: The dream of an explorer is to find "large, rich, and good" mines, and it can be said that the Yajiang lithium mine is the "tall, rich and handsome" among the domestic proven lithium mines. Firstly, the Yajiang super-large single deposit is like an outstanding "only child," being the largest lepidolite-type single lithium mine in Asia. Previously discovered super-large hard rock lithium mines are often a combination of several deposits of varying sizes, like a "band of brothers," which makes their development relatively more difficult. Secondly, grade is a determining factor in the economic benefit of a mine. The average lithium oxide grade of Yajiang lithium mine reaches 1.62%, significantly higher than the average grade of approximately 1.24% in the Jiajika region of western Sichuan, and also far exceeds the average lithium mica mine grade of 0.3% to 0.8% in places like Jiangxi and Guizhou in China. Thirdly, although the Yajiang lithium mine is located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, the altitude is not very high, which reduces its development difficulty.
