(Yicai Global) Feb. 26 -- An accident killed 22 miners who were descending to the Xingye Mining unit's silver mine on Feb. 23, the Inner Mongolia-based company said in a statement yesterday. 

Local regulators have now ordered the subsidiary and other Xingye Mining units to halt production, which will greatly affect the parent's cash flow and operating profit, and which caused its shares [SHE:000426] to plummet 9.25 percent to close at CNY6.67 (USD1.00) today.

The Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia-based Yinman Mining, the wholly-owned Xingye Mining unit, suffered the major transport accident in its mine on Feb. 23 when a shuttle bus carrying the workers down a tunnel to the pithead suffered brake failure and lost control, slamming into an auxiliary ramp.

Ten persons charged with responsibility for the accident have been detained, with one released on bail, Legal Daily reported.

The authorities also suspended the production of all Xingye Mining's other units, including Rongguan Mining, which has an annual output of 1.35 million tons, Xilin Mining with a yearly yield of 720,000 tons, and Qianjinda Mining whose pit is still under construction.

Xingye Mining cannot calculate the exact impact of the suspension on its performance since it does not know when it may resume production, it added.

Founded in 1996, the company is based in Chifeng, also in China's northern Inner Mongolia region, where a large-scale non-ferrous metal belt has been identified.

The Yinman Mining unit mainly extracts silver, tin, copper and other non-ferrous metals and has a 1.65 million-ton annual production capacity. 

It gained net profit of CNY400 million (USD60 million) from January to September last year from its non-ferrous metal operations, making up over 70 percent of the company's total net profit, Xingye Mining said in a statement today.

The family of Ji Xingye, the company's actual controller, made the Hurun Rich List of China's wealthiest individuals with a net worth of CNY5.6 billion (USD836 million) in 2017.

Editor: Ben Armour