China Minmetals Corp. set up a new graphite-focused unit, China Minmetals Graphite Industry Co. Ltd., in China's Heilongjiang province.

The company said Dec. 19 that it will build a green intelligent mine on graphite resources in Yunshan, Luobei County, and build an integrated graphite industry chain to produce spherical graphite and cathode materials.

China Minmetals President Guo Wenqing said the company is looking to build a closed-cycle industrial ecosystem of anode and cathode materials in the energy industry.

The move is the state-owned company's first advance into the graphite mining industry, Reuters reported the same day.

The Yunshan mine hosts graphite resources of over 1 billion tonnes, the newswire added, citing a November 2016 Chinese state media report.