4.22.2.1 Present State of Production

Mining of kaolin deposits in China now includes both open pit mining and underground work. Many kaolin occurrences are open pit mined, but most of them are medium-sized and small mines. Large mines are those run by the Longyan Kaolin Co. in Fujian, Maoming Kaolin Co. and Maoming South Kaolin Co. in Guangdong etc. Those that undertake large-scale underground operations are the Yangxi shaft, Guanshan shaft and Baishanling (Yangdong) at Suzhou, as well as Baini mine at Qingshan, Wuxian in Jiangsu Province. Mineral dressing and processing techniques mainly include hydroclassification, magnetic separation, bleaching, splitting, calcination and surface modification.

At present there are a total of over 800 kaolin mines owned by mining enterprises at and above the county level and mining localities run by town (township) enterprises, with an annual production capacity of over three million tons and a dressing capacity of 500,000 tons. The leading production areas of kaolin lie in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Jiangxi. The mining enterprises that produce 100,000 tons of raw kaolin each year are Suzhou China China-clay Co. in Jiangsu, Zhanjiang Kaolin Co., Maoming Kaolin Co., Maoming Nanshange China-clay Co. and Maoming Petrochemical Mining Industry Co. in Guangdong and Longyan Kaolin Co. in Fujian. The enterprises with a mechanical dressing capacity of over 100,000 tons are Suzhou China China-clay Co. in Jiangsu and Zhanjiang Kaolin Co. in Guangdong. Moreover, now there are more than 20 coal measures-hosted kaolin mining enterprises with an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons and more than ten coal-measures-hosted kaolin mining enterprises being built and to be built, with a designed annual production capacity of over 200,000 tons.

China is the third most important kaolin producer, following the United States and Britain. According to the statistics from the State Administration of Building Materials Industry, in 1997 China's production of kaolin was 10.8999 million tons (according to the statistics from the Chinese Nonmetallic Minerals Industry Association it was 10.7002 million tons). The kaolin production of part of provinces and regions of China in 1994~1997 is given in Table 4.22.1.

4.22.2.2 Distribution of Production

The distribution of kaolin mines and coal-measures kaolin processing enterprises of China are shown in Fig. 4.22.2 and Table 4.22.2. As shown in the figure, kaolin occurrences are

Table 4.22.1 Kaolin production of part of provinces and regions of China in 1994~1997(t)

¢ÙData from the Chinese Nonmetallic Minerals Industry Association and State Administration of Building Materials Industry. ¢Ú Minerals analyzed include high-duty kaolin, ceramic refractory kaolin and other kinds of porcelain minerals.

mainly distributed in Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Jiangsu. In 1997 the kaolin production of Guangdong, Hunan and Fujian provinces was 6.5375 million tons, 765,900 tons and 1.4937 million tons respectively. The enterprises of coal-measures kaolin processing are mainly concentrated in Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hebei, and their production is given in Table 4.22.3.