Two Shanxi bauxite mine auctions aborted in January

On January 26, an auction for the exploration rights to the Liujiazhuang bauxite mine block in Lvliang city was abandoned, the platform showed. The mine block covers an area of about 3.8 square kilometers, with a starting price of Yuan 420,000 ($60,461).

Earlier, on January 21, another auction for the exploration rights to the Nanping bauxite mine block in Changzhi city in Shanxi attracted no valid bids either. The Nanping block spans approximately 19.2 square kilometers and had a starting price of Yuan 2.1 million.

Both mine blocks were offered with a proposed transfer term of five years, and the minimum bid increment for each auction was set at Yuan 1 million above the starting price. Bidder eligibility for both auctions was limited to enterprises with independent legal person status registered on the Chinese mainland. In addition, bidders were required to have net assets of more than Yuan 1 billion.

The transferor, the Department of Natural Resources of Shanxi Province, did not disclose the reasons for the aborted auctions, however.

So far this year, Shanxi province has officially listed three bauxite mine blocks on the natural resources trading platform for auctions. In addition to the two aborted auctions, the exploration rights to another bauxite mine block in Changzhi city are scheduled to be auctioned on the same platform in March, Mysteel Global noted.

Rich in mineral resources and one of China's major alumina production bases, Shanxi province transferred exploration and exploitation rights to nine bauxite mine blocks through auctions in 2025, generating total proceeds of more than Yuan 24.9 billion, as Mysteel Global reported.

Written by Iris Pang, pangjunyu@mysteel.com