in April 27, I visited Fujian Zijin mining group co., ltd. Its development reflects the development course of China's mining enterprises in the process of economic system transformation, and provides experience for institutional innovation to promote mining development.
(I) Basic information
Fujian Zijin Mining Co., Ltd. was formerly known as Shanghang County Mining Company and was established in June 1986. After a series of changes, in May 24, it was reviewed and approved by the company's 23 annual general meeting of shareholders and renamed as "Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd.".
Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zijin Mining) is a large-scale comprehensive mining group engaged in the exploration, mining, beneficiation, smelting and mineral products sales of gold and non-ferrous metals and other mineral resources, and mainly focuses on gold production. It has the largest domestic mining scale and the largest single mineral gold mine, and is located in Xinjiang, Guizhou, Tibet, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Heilongjiang and Henan. See Table 4-7 for the main production and operation results from 21 to 26.
Table 4-7 Main Production and Operation Achievements of Zijin Mining
As can be seen from Table 4-7, the sales revenue of Zijin Mining increased by 35 times and the total profit increased by 34 times in seven years. Although these two substantial increases are due to the price increase of mineral products, it is an indisputable fact that gold production has doubled and the average annual growth rate is 7%, which is rare in the development of mining industry at home and abroad and can be called a miracle.
so, how did its miracle come about? What is its main experience? Based on the investigation and research, I try to make some answers.
(II) System innovation is a powerful driving force for the company's development
The company started from a small mine. In 1985, a copper-gold deposit was discovered in Zijinshan, Shanghang County by the Southwest Fujian Geological Brigade, and a detailed investigation report was submitted. In 1993, the Shanghang County Finance Bureau invested 5.24 million yuan for development and established Fujian Zijin Mining Corporation. In 1994, it was renamed Fujian Minxi Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd.. But after 1998, the real enterprise restructuring took three major steps:
The first step, in 1998, on the basis of the original limited company, the employee stock ownership was increased, and the state-controlled Minxi Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. was established.
in the second step, in 2, through further restructuring, Fujian Zijin Mining Co., Ltd. was established by eight legal entities, which absorbed private shareholders.
the third step, in 23, it was listed on the Hong Kong H-share market and issued 4,544, H-shares, officially becoming a listed company.
the shareholding structure in p>26 is shown in table 4-8.
table 4-8 ownership structure of Zijin mining
this system is called innovation, because it has played a decisive role in the development of Zijin mining, because it not only has the name of shares, but also has the fact of shares. Its outstanding features are as follows:
(1) It really got rid of the situation that government and enterprises are not divided and interfered by many parties. On the premise of operating in accordance with the law, the board of directors can really act in accordance with market rules, with the aim of creating social wealth and pursuing profit maximization, and be active in the field of market competition. Zijin implements joint-stock system. Although Shanghang county government is in a relative holding position, the leading group of Wuren county has never made direct administrative intervention. At the same time, even if you want to intervene, it is difficult to achieve it in front of a truly independent board of directors. This is the role of the system.
(2) It has really formed the elite to govern enterprises. The two-level leadership teams of the group company, its wholly-owned enterprises and holding enterprises are composed of elites who know both economy and technology, production and management, and are familiar with the domestic and foreign peers. The shrewdness of this team is highlighted in major business decisions and employment. They started from Zijin copper and gold mine, and in less than ten years, they successively controlled 88 domestic enterprises and 7 foreign companies. By implementing the "national talent strategy", they absorbed a large number of elites and provided necessary talents for the development of Zijin Mining. With foresight, they put forward the development strategy of "three firsts" (that is, the three-step strategy of leading the domestic gold industry, leading the domestic mining industry and entering the advanced international mining industry), which embodies a high sense of responsibility and mission.
(3) Its corporate governance structure has really played a role of checks and balances. In particular, the company's board of supervisors has formed a complete supervision system to comprehensively supervise the company's decision-making and executive levels. The board of directors and managers also take the initiative to accept supervision. This ensures that there are few mistakes in the implementation of major decisions and important matters of the company; Even if mistakes occur, they will be corrected quickly.
(4) Its shareholding structure has a mechanism to motivate managers. Among the shares of Zijin Mining, except for the "three-point world" owned by the state, the legal person and the public, less than 1% of the chairman personally holds them. Although the proportion of all parts of this operator is not large, the absolute amount of assets and profits is very large, and the gains and losses of its income far exceed its annual salary, so it is of great significance to the operator. It is this major profit mechanism that integrates the personal interests of operators with the overall interests of Zijin Mining.
(III) Management innovation forms an efficient and low-cost operation mechanism
For many years, Zijin Mining has achieved market-oriented operation as much as possible, instead of "big and complete, small and complete", and the company has formed a management system centered on financial management. Through scientific and technological progress, the grade of selected ore has been lowered, which on the one hand increases the gold reserves and on the other hand increases the ore quantity. Faced with a large increase in ore quantity, if there is no scale operation, it will inevitably lead to an increase in development cost, which in turn will lead to a decrease in the grade of selected ore and weaken the role played by scientific and technological progress. In this case, they obtain economies of scale through management innovation, that is, they contract out all mine infrastructure and mining projects, introduce competition mechanism, carry out bidding and optimize construction units. This measure not only greatly saves the capital investment in mine construction and mining, but also greatly reduces the cost of mining and transportation, and reduces the burden on enterprises. In terms of labor and employment, the full employment system is implemented, and competition and elimination mechanisms are introduced, so that employees are transformed from "masters" to "migrant workers", reducing the number of employees directly managed by the company and getting rid of many worries.
(IV) Scientific and technological progress has made an important contribution
Zijin Mining spends more than 5% of its sales revenue on scientific and technological investment every year, thus providing an inexhaustible motive force for enterprise development. This kind of scientific and technological progress with enterprises as the main body is very targeted, and all of them seek breakthroughs in key links. Taking Zijinshan copper-gold mine as an example, the combined process of gravity separation+heap leaching+carbon slurry was creatively researched and developed, which created a model of heap leaching to extract gold in the humid and rainy environment in southern China. Its main economic and technical indicators reached the international advanced level, and the average beneficiation grade of gold mine was reduced from 3 g/ton in 1995 to .679 g/ton in 26. This scientific and technological achievement alone has increased the gold reserves of the mine from 5.45 tons to 2 tons, and created five national firsts in one fell swoop: the largest mineral processing scale; The selected grade is the lowest; Unit infrastructure investment is the least; The cost per ton of ore is the least; The economic effect is the best.
They also used this technology to revive the Shuiyindong gold mine in Guizhou, which was abandoned by Canadian mining companies with a investment of 2 million dollars. This deposit is a typical fine disseminated refractory deposit. The company adopted the self-developed chemical pre-oxidation technology of heating and atmospheric pressure, and successfully developed it, with a capital of 3 million yuan and a profit of 2 million yuan.
(5) The premise of development is a solid foundation of mineral resources
Mining industry has a prominent feature, that is, its labor object (mineral resources are equivalent to raw materials for processing industry) is a one-time supply and has been used for many years. On the one hand, this feature shows the extreme importance of mineral resources (reserves) to mining production, on the other hand, it shows that once enterprises get mineral resources, the demand for follow-up resources is not so urgent for a considerable period of time. This is not the case with Zijin Mining. From the beginning, the enterprise attached great importance to the rights and interests of mineral resources, and regarded them as the foundation of the company's survival and development. The enterprise proposes to make the mineral resources bigger and bigger, to make the enterprise stronger and stronger, and to make the shareholders and employees richer and richer. In this relationship of "big, strong and rich", mineral resources are the foundation of strength and wealth. Therefore, Zijin Mining has continuously increased its possession of mineral resources through two major channels. First, through connotative expansion, that is, improving the resource utilization rate of existing mineral rights, changing small and medium-sized mines into large mines and large mines into extra-large mines, which greatly increases the recoverable resources; Second, through extension expansion, that is, using buyout of mining rights, acquisition of shares of mining enterprises, merger of mining enterprises, cooperative exploration and development, bidding for mining rights, application for registration of mining rights, and cooperative exploration of multiple mining rights industries to increase the amount of resources. By 26, Zijin Mining had 179 exploration rights and 27 mining rights. The main mineral resources occupied are as follows: 455 tons of gold; 151 tons of platinum and palladium; 6.7 million tons of copper; 2.38 million tons of zinc; 54, tons of nickel; 4, tons of lead; 26, tons of molybdenum; 1, tons of tin; 18 million tons of iron ore; 3 million tons of coal.
in order to occupy the resources, they have invested a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources in geological exploration, from area survey to mine site inspection, and dare to take the risk of prospecting. In 26 alone, 118 million yuan was invested in geological prospecting, 17 exploration projects were implemented, and 87, meters of drilling and 13, meters of pit exploration were completed.
(VI) Corporate culture is the spiritual driving force for the sustainable development of mining enterprises
Corporate culture is the same idea, style, values and code of conduct formed by enterprises themselves in their operation. It is also a belief and behavior with enterprise personality. The corporate culture of Zijin Mining is outstanding in dealing with social-related issues:
(1) In dealing with the relationship with local residents and the government, the enterprise insists on supporting, opening a mine to benefit one side, benefiting the people and facilitating the people, and has never clashed with the local area because of mining, road construction and walking, so wherever they go, they are very popular and always have a good environment for mineral development.
(2) In ensuring safety in production, we should adhere to the unity of speed, scale and effect with safety in production, fully implement the responsibility system for safety in production, and insist that "whoever is in charge is responsible, and safety must be ensured in production management". Therefore, it has maintained a good record in safety production for many years, among which the safety production of Zijinshan copper and gold mine passed the provincial evaluation and was rated as a class A mine.
(VII) Enlightenment and Suggestions
Through the investigation of Zijin Mining Group, I felt a lot and was deeply impressed. For the construction of mining system under the socialist market economy system, it gives us enlightenment from the perspective of government's management of mineral exploration and development.
1. Vigorously developing joint-stock mining groups is the foundation of strengthening mining administration.
The management system of mining enterprises plays a key role in protecting and rationally utilizing China's mineral resources. To some extent, what kind of mining enterprise system there is, there is what kind of resource view there is. The shareholding system of Zijin Mining has created brilliant achievements in the possession and utilization of mineral resources: increasing the gold reserves from 5.5 tons to 35 tons; Turn abandoned gold mines that are difficult to choose and smelt into exploitable and profitable mines. And all this is done by the enterprise's own mechanism without any government intervention. It shows the importance of correctly selecting the mining enterprise system for the government to effectively manage the mine. Zijin mining system has such a function, mainly because it has the following characteristics:
(1) Its shareholding structure is reasonable, which can form a mechanism of mutual restraint and mutual encouragement, and can effectively resist external interference;
(2) Its internal governance structure truly checks and balances each other, which can effectively avoid major mistakes;
(3) It is large in scale and strong in strength, which can comprehensively coordinate exploration, production and scientific research, and provide inexhaustible power for the sustainable development of enterprises;
(4) Its enterprise goals are far-sighted, its long-term strategy is used to guide enterprise management, and it has its own corporate culture, which can effectively avoid quick success and instant benefit.
2. Mining enterprises are the main body of mineral exploration, which is the inevitable requirement of the new mining system.
Mineral exploration has always been a part of the mining industry in terms of production process and cost compensation, and the long-term separation of solid mineral exploration and development in China is the product of the planned economic system. During the planned economy period, institutions explored and enterprises mined, while exploration and development were organically combined under the conditions of market economy. At present, the trend has changed to the initial investigation of local governments, detailed investigation and development of enterprises, which runs counter to the operation of market economy and is worthy of attention. The experience of Zijin Mining is that mineral exploration should be carried out by enterprises from the beginning of prospecting. These enterprises can be independent of the mining enterprises, and it is enough to connect them through the market. That is to say, the market subject of mineral exploration must be enterprises, which is exactly what is required by the decision to strengthen geological work. The enterprises mentioned here include both exploration enterprises and mining enterprises, collectively referred to as mining enterprises. However, whether it is exploration or mining, their investment will eventually be compensated from the sales income of mineral products. Therefore, if the investment in mineral exploration is to form a long-term mechanism, it must be returned to enterprises and let them practice a virtuous circle. Zijin Mining regards mineral resources as the foundation of survival and development, and the whole Zijin is like a building. The higher the building, the stronger its foundation is required. It is this relationship that under the market economy system, it is foolproof to return mineral exploration to mining enterprises. It doesn't matter whether it buys mining rights or explores by itself.
3. We must build a fair and just mining rights market
Mining rights market is an essential factor market of mining industry and an important part of the whole mining market. At present, the mining market is relatively developed, and the vast majority of mineral products are allocated by the market. However, the development of the mining right market of domestic solid minerals is far from in place, mainly due to the lack of a fair and just environment. Take the exploration right market as an example, some provinces (autonomous regions) stipulate that anyone who wants to enter this market must purchase mining rights (exploration blocks) with the price through "bidding, auction and hanging". The government invests in mineral exploration with geological exploration funds, but it does not need to buy mining rights first. In this market, from the beginning, the government, as the main body of investment, took advantage. Compared with the main body of social capital investment, there is no need to use capital to purchase exploration rights, which has formed unfair competition. If such a market continues to develop, it will not only crowd out all the social funds for risk survey, but also affect the basic role of the market in the allocation of mineral resources. Because the choice of government funds is ultimately a government decision, it is impossible to fully reflect the market demand. The market allocation of mineral resources should start from the mineral survey. Once the census project cannot meet the needs of the market, it will inevitably affect the whole mining industry. At the same time, the fund engaged in mineral survey, because there is no set of enterprise mechanism constraints, it will inevitably lead to low efficiency. Therefore, we must cultivate and develop a fair and just mining rights market. Under the market conditions of fair competition, if the local government thinks that the risk income of geological prospecting is greater than the risk loss, it can completely turn the fund into equity and operate it through enterprises.
4. There must be policies to reflect the advantages and disadvantages of mineral resources utilization.
Protecting and rationally utilizing mineral resources is the main responsibility of the administrative department of land and resources, which is far more important than managing geological prospecting. However, in the actual mining administration, the two are reversed, right