"King of Gold" Zijin Mining's stock price soars: Gold as the spear, lithium mines as the shield

Author: Kanjian Finance

The arrival of a new cycle in non-ferrous metals has made the gold sector the biggest winner.

As the largest company by market capitalization in the A-share gold sector, Zijin Mining has also become one of the ultimate winners.

On January 6th, Zijin Mining experienced a “historic moment,” with its stock price soaring over 6%, and its market value temporarily surpassing 1 trillion yuan. Looking back at the entire 2025, Zijin Mining’s performance in the capital market has been outstanding, with an annual stock price increase of 135.77% and a total market value growth of 525.8 billion yuan.

Over a longer cycle, this marks the sixth consecutive year of rising stock prices for Zijin Mining. At the beginning of 2020, Zijin Mining’s stock was only 3.15 yuan per share, and now the stock price has increased more than tenfold.

Behind Zijin Mining’s soaring stock price, the rising prices of precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper are naturally key drivers, especially gold. According to media reports, in 2025, precious metals experienced a historic bull market, with London spot gold rising over 60% cumulatively, setting new annual highs 50 times, the strongest performance in nearly four decades. Among Zijin Mining’s main business segments, gold mining is the largest revenue contributor. Driven by the continuous rise in gold prices, Zijin Mining is expected to achieve a net profit of 51 billion to 52 billion yuan in 2025, with an average daily net profit approaching 140 million yuan.

In addition to the rise in precious metals prices, the reason Zijin Mining’s stock price has increased for six consecutive years is more critically due to its long-term strategic layout around gold and copper resources.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan, from 2019 to 2024, the average acquisition cost per ounce of the mines Zijin Mining acquired was about $61.3, compared to the industry average of about $92.9 per ounce, a difference of 52%. This precise global bottom-fishing advantage in low-cost acquisitions gives Zijin Mining strong confidence to withstand cyclical fluctuations.

In the past two years, Zijin Mining has also turned its attention to lithium resources. Early last year, Zijin Mining invested 13.7 billion yuan to acquire approximately 25% of Zangge Mining’s shares and gained control, incorporating multiple lithium salt lake resources in Tibet and Qinghai into its portfolio. This move significantly increased the company’s lithium reserves, now reaching an equivalent of 17.88 million tons of lithium carbonate, ranking among the top ten globally in terms of lithium resource reserves.

Clearly, Zijin Mining’s goal is not just to become a gold giant, and surpassing a trillion yuan in market value is certainly not Zijin Mining’s “end point.”

Looking back, Zijin Mining’s current success is closely linked to a mountain and a person.

The mountain is Zijin Mountain, once deemed by experts as “not worth mining,” and the person is Chen Jinghe, who gave up a job in the provincial capital and volunteered to develop Zijin Mountain in the county.

Records show that Chen Jinghe was among the first batch of college students after the resumption of the college entrance examination. After graduating from Fuzhou University’s geology program in 1982, he was assigned to the Minxi Geological Brigade. He led a team to explore Zijin Mountain for ten years, but the results were disappointing: the gold reserves in Zijin Mountain were only 5.43 tons, with only 1 gram of gold per ton of ore.

Due to the low gold content, provincial authorities delegated the mining rights of this “poor mine” to Shanghang County. Unwilling to let the exploration results go to waste, Chen Jinghe gave up his position as a section-level official in the provincial geological department and became the general manager of Shanghang County Mineral Company, participating in the mining of Zijin Mountain gold deposit. This was the predecessor of Zijin Mining. In the face of skepticism, Chen Jinghe “disregarded others’ opinions,” boldly adopting the industry’s unpopular heap leaching technology, reducing the investment in a 50,000-ton gold mine from 29 million yuan to 7 million yuan, and turning a large amount of waste ore into mineable gold deposits.

Driven by technological innovation, Zijin Mountain transformed from a “waste mountain” into China’s largest gold mine, with proven gold reserves exceeding 300 tons and a potential value surpassing 10 billion yuan.

In 2001, Shanghang Mining Company was officially renamed Zijin Mining, which had already taken shape by then. However, Chen Jinghe was not satisfied and realized that if they only relied on Zijin Mountain, mineral resources would eventually be exhausted. With the national calls for “Western Development” and “Revitalization of Northeast Old Industrial Bases,” Zijin Mining began its nationwide expansion. In 2002, Zijin Mining acquired the Guizhou Mercury Cave Gold Mine at a low price, marking its first step toward nationwide development.

Subsequently, Zijin Mining continued to expand, acquiring mines such as the Aksu copper-zinc mine in Xinjiang, the Hunchun gold-copper mine in Jilin, and the Xiyulong copper mine. In 2003 and 2008, Zijin Mining was listed in Hong Kong (H-shares) and on the A-share market, respectively. By 2013, Zijin Mining had become one of China’s most resource-rich companies controlling metal mineral resources.

Although Zijin Mining was already successful at this point, it was only the beginning for this trillion-yuan giant. Its true explosion came in 2015. At that time, the global mining industry was in a downturn, with Vale suffering a loss of 12.1 billion USD, and Glencore losing 4.964 billion USD. During this industry low, Chen Jinghe chose to go against the trend, boldly implementing a “counter-cyclical M&A” strategy, acquiring multiple projects worldwide, including Australia’s Panoramic Gold, Norton Gold Fields, Congo’s Mutosonoi Mining, and Barrick (Papua New Guinea).

In 2019, Zijin Mining set its sights on the Buritica gold mine in Colombia, one of the highest-grade gold mines in the world, operated by Continental Gold. Zijin Mining ultimately acquired 100% of Continental Gold at a cost of 1.33 billion CAD.

These successive acquisitions rapidly expanded Zijin Mining’s scale.

By the end of 2022, the company’s resource reserves (proven, controlled, and inferred) included 73.72 million tons of copper, 3,117 tons of gold, 11.18 million tons of zinc (lead), 14,612 tons of silver, and 12.15 million tons of lithium resource equivalent (lithium carbonate). It is through these years of acquisitions that Zijin Mining has been able to capitalize on the huge dividends of the 2025 precious metals bull market.

In addition to traditional gold and copper, Zijin Mining has also turned its focus to lithium resources.

Lithium is called the “white oil” of the future for humanity. The recent explosive growth of new energy vehicles and energy storage has led to a surge in demand for upstream metals such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt.

As a non-ferrous metals giant, Zijin Mining naturally recognizes the huge opportunities behind lithium resources. In 2021, Chen Jinghe proposed the goal of “striving to become an important enterprise in the global lithium industry.” However, Chen Jinghe and Zijin Mining did not rush to enter the market but instead continued the previous counter-cyclical layout, accumulating large lithium resources during the industry downturn.

Zijin Mining’s first lithium project was in 2021. In October of that year, Zijin Mining acquired Canadian Neo Lithium for about 4.939 billion yuan. Its core asset is the 3Q salt lake project in Argentina, which features high grade and low impurities. This acquisition marked Zijin Mining’s official entry into the new energy mineral sector and its first step toward a global lithium resource layout.

2022 was a critical year for Zijin’s domestic lithium expansion. In April, Zijin Mining spent 7.682 billion yuan to acquire a 70% stake in Tibet’s Laguo Cuo salt lake lithium mine; two months later, Zijin Mining bought a 71.14% stake in Houchao Mining in Hunan for 1.8 billion yuan, successfully acquiring 100% of the mining rights for the Xiangyuan lithium and multi-metal deposit. As a result, Zijin Mining formed a core pattern of “Two Lakes and One Mine,” centered on Argentina’s 3Q salt lake, Tibet’s Laguo Cuo salt lake, and Hunan’s Xiangyuan lithium mine. The lithium carbonate equivalent reserves of these three assets are 7.63 million tons, 2.14 million tons, and 2.16 million tons respectively, totaling over 10 million tons.

In 2023, due to oversupply, lithium carbonate prices plummeted, and investment risks increased. Although Zijin Mining slowed its M&A pace, it continued to increase investments in high-quality lithium mines. In July, Zijin Mining increased its stake in Tianqi Lithium by investing in Tianqi, acquiring a 20% stake in Shenghe Lithium and obtaining minority rights in the Ya’jiang Cuo lithium mine in western Sichuan. In October, Zijin Mining obtained exploration rights for the Manono North lithium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has a lithium carbonate equivalent of 16.4 million tons, ranking fourth globally among clay and hard-rock lithium deposits.

After a series of operations, Zijin Mining controls lithium carbonate equivalent resources exceeding 12.15 million tons, ranking ninth globally, and third in China after Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium.

However, the story does not end here.

In early 2025, Zijin Mining made its largest single investment in history, acquiring approximately 24.82% of Zangge Mining’s shares for 13.729 billion yuan, gaining control. It should be noted that this investment was not just a simple financial move; Zijin Mining not only achieved absolute control of the Tibet Longba Copper Mine through cooperation but also gained potassium fertilizer resources and salt lake lithium production capacity at Zangge’s Chaarhan Salt Lake in Qinghai, as well as rights to several salt lakes such as Mami Cuo and Longmu Cuo in Tibet, elevating its lithium resource reserves to a new level.

Overall, the explosive growth of gold and copper in 2025 has driven Zijin Mining’s total market value beyond 1 trillion yuan. Although there has been some pullback, Zijin Mining’s upward cycle is not over. It is worth noting that the second growth curve of lithium resources also makes Zijin Mining’s future full of potential. Therefore, for Zijin Mining, surpassing a trillion yuan is not the end, but just the beginning of a promising future.