Geologists have discovered an iron ore deposit with an estimated reserve of more than 3 billion tonnes in northeast China's Liaoning Province, or the largest in Asia, a local official said Wednesday.

The newly-found deposit, mainly between 1,200 meters and 1,860 meters underground and spanning a four-km-long, three-km-wide area, is at the Qiaotou Township, Pingshan District, Benxi City, said Yu Wenli, head of the Liaoning Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources Exploration.

"We found high-grade iron ore even at a depth of 2,015 meters," Yu said.

He said that the iron ore is a mixture of magnetite and hematite, and the iron content is between 25 percent and 62 percent.

"The deposit can be exploited for more than 50 years," he said.

Statistics with Yu's bureau show Liaoning has abundant iron resources that account for at least a quarter of the country's total.

"Although we have exploited large amounts of iron deposits over the past several decades in the province, there are still lots of deposits underground awaiting exploration," he said.

A news release posted on the official website of the Benxi municipal government hailed the newly-found iron deposit as "Asia's largest for now," and said Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi made a special inspection tour of the deposit site on June 18.

Xu urged local authorities to start exploitation "as quickly as possible" at the iron mine so as to make contributions to the national and local development, according to the news release.

Shares of steel makers gained Wednesday, boosted by the news of the iron deposit discovery.

Baosteel, the country's biggest steel mill, rose 3 percent to 7.2 yuan (US$1.06). Angang Steel Co., the second-largest, surged 7.42 percent to 14.18 yuan (US$2.09). Shares of Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group climbed 4.52 percent to 7.4 yuan (US$1.09).

(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2009)