4.15.2.1 Production

The talc deposits in China are exploited by both open-pit mining and underground mining. The open-pit mining is used in east No.1 and No.2 orebodies in the Haicheng talc mine, Liaoning, and the Longsheng talc quarry, Guangxi. The occurrences exploited with underground mining are numerous, such as west No.1 ore body in the Haicheng talc mine, Qixia talc deposit, Haiyang talc deposit, Benxi talc deposit, Yixian talc deposit, Shuiquan talc deposit of Haicheng, Kuandian talc deposit and Yingkou talc deposit. Dressing of talc ores in China is done by handpicking and air classification. The talc products are divided into two series, namely talc lumps and talc powder. 

There are about 130 talc mining enterprises in China with gross production capacity of about 3.00 million t / a. The main producing areas are concentrated in Guangxi, Liaoning and Shandong. The mining enterprises with production of over 50,000 tons of talc ore are: Haicheng, Yingkou and Benxi in Liaoning Province; Haiyang, Pingdu and Qixia in Shandong Province; Guilin and Longsheng in Guangxi Autonomous Region. 

At present, there are more than 40 talc producing countries in the world. According to Mineral Commodity Summaries 1999, the total production of talc in the world is 8.47 million tons. China, the United States of America and Japan are the three largest talc producing countries in the world. The total talc production of these 3 countries in 1997 accounted for over half of the world total production. Other major talc producing countries are the Republic of Korea, India and Brazil. 

China is a major talc producing country in the world. The production in 1980 was only 0.915 million tons, and in 1987 it reached 1.27 million tons and exceeded for the  first time the production of USA and Japan, and China became the first talc producing country in the world. The talc production in China in 1990 reached 2.545 million tons, accounting for 30.8% of the world total talc production in that year. The talc production of China in 1997 was 4.0689 million tons, accounting for 48% of the world total talc production in that year; thus China had become the world leading talc producing country in the 10 successive years. 

The talc production of major talc producing provinces ( autonomous regions) in China in 1994 to 1997 are shown in Table 4.15.1.

Table 4.15.1 Talc production of major talc producing provinces (autonomous regions) in 1994~1997 (¡Á10³ t/a)

4.15.2.2 Distribution of Production

The distribution of major talc producing enterprises in China is shown in Fig. 4.15.2 and Table 4.15.2. It may be is seen from the figure that the talc occurrences in China are distributed considerably widely. Nevertheless, two thirds of the production are concentrated in Liaoning, Shandong and Guangxi. At present, Liaoning, Shandong and Guangxi have already become the major talc production and export bases of China. According to the statistics of the State Administration for Building Materials Industry of China, the talc production of Liaoning, Shandong and Guangxi in 1997 occupied the first 3 places in China, accounting for 48.6%, 12.64% and 10.66% of the total national outputs of China respectively.

Table 4.15.2 The major talc producing enterprises in China