Scientific projections indicate that half of the oil resources in eastern china are not yet proven and 75 percent of oil resources in the west and the sea areas are yet to be discovered, according to the results of 2010 oil and gas resources dynamic evaluation.
The State Council recently passed the "Outline of Breakthrough Strategy for Mineral Exploration (2011-2020)”, which proposes implementing breakthrough strategy for mineral exploration.
China is located in the intersection of three metallogenic domains, i.e. Pacific Rim, ancient Asia and Tethys, and has favorable metallogenic conditions. The national mineral resource potential assessment shows that China holds a relatively large prospecting potential of important minerals.
Oil and gas resources have a great potential. According to the dynamic evaluation, China has petroleum geological resource of 88.1 billion tons, natural gas geological resource of 52 trillion cubic meters and coal bed methane resources of 36.8 trillion cubic meters.
As of the end of 2010, the cumulatively proven reserves of oil are 31.28 billion tons, with the rate of proven resources reaching 35.5 percent; the cumulatively proven reserves of natural gas are 9.3 trillion cubic meters, with the rate of proven resources of 17.9 percent; the cumulatively proven reserves of coal bed methane are 273.4 billion cubic meters, with the rate of proven resources of merely 0.74 percent. Half of oil resources in east China and 75 percent of oil resources in west and sea are not proven yet.
Energy and mineral resources, including coal and uranium, have a considerable prospect. According to the coal resources projection and evaluation results, 3.95 trillion ton of coal resource reserves are yet to be proven, with the rate of proven resources being 25.9 percent as of the end of 2010. Regarding these unproven coal resource reserves, the western region has a lower degree of geological work, favorable resource conditions, and good prospect for coal exploration.
At present, the overall rate of proven important mineral resources in China is roughly between one-fourth and one-third. The projected amount of resources of iron, copper, aluminum, gold and potash is two to three times their proven amount. Two-third of the hundreds of thousands of geophysical and geochemical anomalies found in China have not yet undergone verification of class two and above, thus have huge prospecting potential.
Mineral exploration work in the western important metallogenic belt has just started, holding considerable prospecting potential. China's overall exploration depth has been at a shallow level of under 500 meters, therefore there is a great potential for greater depth exploring.
The 1,010 large and medium-sized mines that support more than 80 percent of production capacity in China are mainly located in the eastern region. The mining resource potential survey shows that fully tapping the potential of the old mine resources can bring an additional amount of recoverable reserves, which can be quickly converted to production capacity.