After 17 years of work, Chinese geologists have made a minerals
breakthrough: they discovered the country's first 10,000-ton level
leaching sandstone-type uranium deposit in the Yili basin, which is
in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Yili, in the northern part of Xinjiang, thus becomes the
country's largest source of leaching sandstone-type uranium
deposits.
General engineer Wang Cheng said that the deposit would produce
more than 300 billion yuan (about 40 billion U.S. dollars) worth of
uranium, coal and associated minerals, with coal resources totaling
more than 4 billion tons.
He said the find would boost development of an existing
large-scale coal and electricity production base in the region.
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2008)