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The Department of Natural Resources of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region announced that on June 16, after 125 rounds of bidding, the mining rights for natural soda in the Daqinta La area of Naiman Banner, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, were sold for 6.80866 billion yuan. According to a statement released by Zhongyan Chemical Industry on the evening of June 19, Zhongyan Jianye participated in the bidding for the rights to mine this natural soda ash, and received a \"Confirmation of Sale\" from the Tongliao Natural Resources Bureau on June 17. It is currently still in the public announcement period; once no objections arise during this period, a \"Mining Rights Assignment Contract\" will be signed with the rights seller within 20 working days, and the mining rights will be confirmed after the assignment fee is paid as required. The announcement states that Zhongyan Chemical and Taihu Investment jointly established Zhongyan Alkali Industry with the aim of obtaining the rights to mine natural alkali in the Tongliao area of Inner Mongolia, with Taihu Investment holding 51% of the shares and Zhongyan Chemical holding 49%. Currently, Taihu Investment has proposed to withdraw from its entire equity stake and related interests in Zhongyan Jianye by reducing its capital contribution. Following the capital reduction, Sino Salt Chemical will hold 100% of the shares in Sino Salt Alkali Industry, and subsequent investments related to natural alkali resources will be carried out by Sino Salt Alkali Industry. Zhongyan Chemical has a soda ash production capacity of 3.9 million tons, making it the third-largest soda ash producer in China. Zhongyan Chemical stated that developing the natural soda industry can effectively optimize the company’s soda ash product portfolio; while strengthening the use of the \"ammonia-soda method\" and \"combined soda method\" in the soda ash industry, the company will also take solid steps forward in adopting the \"natural soda method\". In recent years, Tongliao City has made efforts to make breakthroughs in the exploration of natron. In 2023, a municipal geological exploration fund was established, and systematic exploration work was carried out on the natron resources in the Daqintaola area of Naiman Banner. Over a period of two years, 28 exploration wells were drilled, with a total drilling depth of 51,505 meters; 3,945 sample analyses were conducted. It was determined that the amount of natron resources in the 40-square-kilometer exploration area is as high as 2.077 billion tons, while the amount of rock salt resources identified was 1.374 billion tons. The trona deposits discovered in the 28.85 square kilometer area being sold represent the largest trona deposit in Inner Mongolia in terms of identified resource reserves; the total amount of this mineral is 1.447 billion tons (of which 521 million tons correspond to resources with a salt content of ≤9.54%, leaving 926 million tons of trona minerals as associated minerals). This transfer will lay a solid foundation for the development of a natural soda industry cluster worth hundreds of billions.