Mining in Japan

[2] Japan is scarce in critical natural resources and has been heavily dependent on imported energy and raw materials.

After the period of high economic growth, in addition to resource depletion or lower grades, the mining cost rose and price competitiveness was lost.

[not verified in body] In the 21st century, mining has only been carried out in the Kushiro Coal Field (釧路炭田) for technology transfer.

According to the Canadian Trade Commission for Japan: "In 2012, the Government of Japan increased the credit line for the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) by 10 trillion yen (approximately C$105 billion) to further enable the Japanese private sector to secure strategic natural resources, and expanded JBIC's mandate to provide financial assistance for certain types of natural resource development projects in developed countries.

"[1][citation needed] The country lacks significant domestic reserves of fossil fuel, except coal.

Thus Japan imports substantial amounts of crude oil, natural gas, and other energy resources, including uranium.

[4] In April 2018, it was reported that mud from the seabed off the island Minami-Tori-shima, some 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo, contains more than 16 million tons of rare-earth oxides.

In most Japanese coal mines, inclined galleries, which extended in some places to 9.71 kilometers underground, were used instead of pits.

Domestic mining production supplies an important quantity of some nonmetals: silica sand, pyrophyllite clay, dolomite, and limestone.

Domestic mines are contributing declining shares of the country's requirements for some metals: zinc, copper, and gold.

[17] In 1925, the local petroleum reserves were estimated at 2,956,000 barrels in the Niigata, Akita and Nutsu deposits and, additionally, at Sakhalin concessions.

In Manchukuo, oil wells gave Japan 1,000,000 of additional petroleum tonnes per year.

[citation needed] The principal silver mines were in Kosaki, Kawaga and Hitachi, and others in Karafuto with Iron Pyrite.

Cobalt, copper, gold, iron, lead, manganese, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc are common [citation needed] and were extensively mined in Japan.

Barium, berillium, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, indium, lithium, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, titanium, uranium and vanadium are uncommon but still were mined in Japan.

Seabed mineral resources such as manganese nodules, cobalt-rich crust and submarine hydrothermal deposits are located at depths over 1,000 m (3,300 ft).

So currently there are few deep sea mining projects to retrieve minerals or deepwater drilling on the ocean floor.

It is estimated that there are approximately 40 trillion cubic feet of methane clathrate in the eastern Nankai Trough of Japan.

It forms a Minami Kantō gas field in the area spanning Saitama, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Ibaraki, and Chiba prefectures.

[23] In March 2013, the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) became the first to successfully extract methane hydrate from seabed deposits.

[26] On December 21, the Government of Japan decided to limit access to offshore rare earth deposits within the EEZ to only approved miners with a license of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.