China recorded a 57-percent year-on-year increase in its lithium reserves in 2022, said an official of the Ministry of Natural Resources at a press conference on Wednesday. 

According to the statistics of national mineral resource reserves in 2022 released at the conference, nearly 40 percent of the 163 identified mineral reserves increased. 

In 2022, the remaining technically recoverable reserves of oil and gas all increased, with oil up 3.2 percent year on year; natural gas up 3.6 percent year on year and shale gas up 3 percent year on year. 

"The newly increased natural gas reserves of six oil-gas fields reached the large size standard, which are the Tianfu gas field and Penglai gas field in the Sichuan Basin, Sulige gas field and Qingshimao gas field in the Ordos Basin, Shunbei oil-gas field in the Tarim Basin and Baodao 21-1 gas field in the Qiongdongnan Basin," said Bo Zhiping, head of the mineral resources protection and supervision department under the Ministry of Natural Resources. 

Reserves of emerging minerals of strategic significance like lithium, cobalt and nickel expanded 57 percent, 14.5 percent and 3 percent respectively in 2022. 

"China is rich in variety of lithium reserves, including salt lake lithium brine, spodumene and lepidolite, which are mainly distributed in the four provincial-level regions of Jiangxi, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet, with a small amount in Henan and Xinjiang. China's lithium reserves increased 57 percent year on year according to the 2022 annual statistics," said Bo. 

Usually referred to as "white oil," lithium is widely used in energy storage, chemical engineering, pharmaceutics, metallurgy and electronics. It is playing a growing role in the green, low-carbon shift of the economy and the development of new energy vehicles.