China Minmetals Advances Three-tier Circular Economy to Boost Green Metallurgical Growth
China Minmetals prioritises green low-carbon development and resource recycling as core corporate strategy, rolling out its proprietary 5F plus dual circular economy framework under the national comprehensive resource conservation strategy. Centred on an integrated industrial layout spanning mining, mineral processing, smelting and solid waste treatment, the group embeds resource conservation and circular utilisation into every production segment, with practical operations split across in-mine circulation, intra-group coordinated circulation and external social circulation to convert idle industrial residues into valuable production resources and accelerate eco-friendly upgrading across the domestic mining and metallurgy sector.
For on-site mine-level circular management, subsidiaries refine technical pathways to realise closed-loop waste reuse. Anhui Development Mining has refined its full-process tailings recycling system to strike full balance between tailings generation and consumption. In 2025, its specular iron tailings recycling rate hit 91.61 percent while magnetite tailings reuse reached 98.33 percent, enabling consistent zero discharge at tailings ponds and cutting annual operational costs by over 25 million RMB to form replicable zero-tailings operation standards for ferrous metal mines. Xintianling Tungsten Industry adopts dual approaches of underground backfilling and construction material production from tailings. Its paste backfilling facility lifts underground ore recovery by more than 10 percent, and matched resource conversion projects push overall tailings utilisation above 60 percent, diverting roughly 3.7 million tonnes of waste away from tailings ponds and extending reservoir service life by five to six years.
Intra-group resource coordination breaks internal operational barriers to facilitate cross-plant waste transfer within the corporate portfolio. Hunan Nonferrous Metals, one of Hunan Province’s first pilot zero-waste conglomerates, builds dedicated delivery routes for smelting residues, shared hazardous waste processing hubs and digital platforms tracking solid waste throughout its service cycle. The solid waste recycling ratio across its Shuikoushan copper-lead-zinc industrial base climbs from below 30 percent to 90 percent, with 67,000 tonnes across 14 categories of hazardous waste reused internally in 2025 to generate over 100 million RMB in annual gains. Another affiliate’s sludge hydrothermal carbonisation project in Chuzhou transforms municipal sludge into biochar for mine land restoration, bridging resource links between urban environmental governance and mine rehabilitation.
The group also expands circular operations into wider social economy via urban waste treatment and retired new energy component recycling. China ENFI’s comprehensive waste disposal complex in Xiongan New Area turns domestic waste into clean power resources, processing more than 12 million tonnes of municipal refuse and generating over 4.1 billion kWh of green electricity with near-zero waste emission. Hunan Yunchu develops precise sorting and capacity reconstruction techniques to restore retired lithium batteries retaining 70 to 80 percent residual capacity, completing a full industrial loop from scrapped power cells to remanufactured energy storage products for downstream market deployment.
China Minmetals keeps upgrading its circular economy mechanisms to advance zero-waste group construction and green transition across the whole metallurgical industrial chain.
