Mongolia could be Rio's copper growth key www.mining-journal.com

Since January last year, JS has flogged $8.5 billion in assets, including the entire coal business. The latest deal was the widely flagged $3.5 billion sale of Rio's post-2022 40% share of production from the Grasberg mine in Indonesia to state-owned interests.
Generally speaking the prices received in the clean-out have been above market expectations, and it has to be said that faced with the prospect of having its 40% Grasberg stake becoming 20% under Indonesia's resource nationalism agenda, taking $3.5 billion off the table was a good outcome,
particularly as the exit from the controversial project boosts Rio's environmental credentials.

As with the previous assets sales, Rio does not need the Grasberg money.
Debt is where it wants it, cashflows are strong, and growth capital expenditure is back from the boom time craziness to levels that are more manageable.
So there is no surprise that every time Rio ticks off a an asset sale there is orgy of speculation about how quickly the excess capital generated can make its way back to shareholders. Fair enough too, given how they missed out during the boom.
But the much bigger question now is does Rio need to make some acquisitions to replenish the silverware cabinet.
Getting out of coal had its virtue benefits in a world that is increasingly active in combating greenhouse emissions. But the exit will leave a big hole in earnings, particularly if currently elevated coking and thermal coal prices persist.
The same goes for the Grasberg exit, post 2022 at any rate. It is the world's second biggest copper mine with credits from gold and molybdenum helping to make it one of the lowest cost. It is getting bigger and better too with its move underground.
Its departure means that a big hole is punched in Rio's copper (and gold) exposure post 2022. Given Rio's copper exposure is already underdone compared with that of BHP Billiton, plugging the post 2022 hole would seem to be a priority.
Dare it be said that without rebuilding the copper position, there is a risk to Rio being over reliant on iron ore and aluminium. After all, Rio has said repeatedly that copper will go in to supply deficit around 2020. Whichever way it is spun, that cannot be said about iron ore and aluminium.
Without the 2022 kicker that was to come from Grasberg, Rio's copper exposure is reduced to a 30% non-managed interest in Escondida (BHP 57.5%), its ageing Kennecott operation, and a long-dated option on the Resolution copper project.
Oyu Tolgoi was left out of the list there because if there is a simple fix to replace the copper lost with the Grasberg departure, then it has to be OT.

The problem with OT is that while Rio runs the show, its exposure is limited to an indirect stake of 33.6% courtesy of its 51% in the Canadian listed Turquoise Hill, the 66% partner with the Mongolian government holding the remaining
34%.
This space is not alone in suggesting that cash freed by the exit from Grasberg position might best be deployed in Rio acquiring the 49% of Turquoise Hill it does not already own for $3.8 billion, which includes a 30% premium.
As it is, there has been some noise from some of the biggest minority shareholders in Turquoise Hill that the company is run as if it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio anyway. While they want greater independence from Rio, that independence can be bought for a 30% premium, which probably has more to do with their agitation than any real governance concerns.
Think of it as an around-about way of inviting Rio to bid.
Rio has been running OT since 2010 and was instrumental in securing the agreements with the Mongolian government which underpin the mine's $5.3 billion expansion by moving underground where most of the value lies.
It will establish OT as one of the world's truly great copper/gold mines.
Production for 2019 is forecast at 156,000t of copper and 256,000oz of gold.
Then the underground kicks in big time, lifting forecast production for 2025 to 622,000 tonnes of copper and 670,000oz of gold.
Between 2022 and 2026 when access to a particularly high-grade zone of the monster orebody is accessed, free cashflow is estimated at $9.5 billion. OT then settles down in to a 500,000t a year copper producer (with gold) for decades to come, with expansion opportunities all the way along.
Having said all that, Mongolia has a habit of throwing up sovereign risk surprises every now and then and the great fear from a Rio and Turquoise Hill perspective is that the State might want more of the action as the move underground is derisked.
Time will tell on that score. What is more certain is that if Rio wants meaningful long-term exposure to the world's next best copper/gold mine, it is best to go in to any future argy-bargy with the State from a 66% partner position, and to do that it needs to buy the minorities out of Turquoise Hill.

Foreign Office Minister Mark Field visits Mongolia www.gov.uk

Minister Field will meet the Foreign Minister, Environment Minister, Finance Minister and Mining Minister to hold discussions on a range of issues, including trade and investment, the environment, the Illegal Wildlife Trade, education, sports links and issues of global concern.

Zoo-bred Przewalski’s horses are freed into the plains of Mongolia where their ancestors roamed for centuries having battled back from just ONE surviving wild animal www.dailymail.co.uk

Their violent kicks rattle the small army plane flying over Siberia as it transports the four rare horses from Prague to the vast Mongolian steppe where the once near-extinct species is slowly recovering.

Known as Przewalski's horses, the ancient species has narrowly avoided extinction thanks to breeding programmes at zoos worldwide and is now gradually being re-introduced to a wildlife reserve in its original homeland.

But confined to wooden boxes, Finnish sisters Helmi and Hanna, German mare Spes and Yanja from a Swiss zoo are not enjoying the 30-hour trip to get to their new home one bit.

Two Wild Przewalski horses are seen in the Takhin Tal reserve in southwest Mongolia on June 20 after being released into the wild +9
Two Wild Przewalski horses are seen in the Takhin Tal reserve in southwest Mongolia on June 20 after being released into the wild

'The plane trip is the toughest part,' Prague Zoo chief vet Roman Vodicka told AFP over the constant drone of the twin-engine propeller plane.

'The horse might make a wrong move, get stuck and lie down, stopping the blood flow to the legs. If this happened on the truck, we might release them for a run in nature, but you can't do that on the plane,' he said.

Prague Zoo, which has bred Przewalski's horses since 1932 and keeps the world genealogy book for the endangered species tracking all new births, launched a project to reintroduce the animals to Mongolia in 2011.

The four round-bellied, short-legged, sandy-beige mares are set to join wild herds in Takhin Tal (meaning the wild horse steppe), where 220 Przewalski's horses now gallop free.

In 1969, there was just one.

'These horses are getting a chance others won't have. They'll return home,' said Jan Marek, a Prague Zoo curator in charge of ungulates.

The horses were transported in large metal crates bearing each of their names and eventually released after a long and arduous journey +9
The horses were transported in large metal crates bearing each of their names and eventually released after a long and arduous journey

The mares took a bumpy truck journey to the remote Takhin Tal reserve, where they are finally able to gallop into an enclosure to find their hooves in their new home +9
The mares took a bumpy truck journey to the remote Takhin Tal reserve, where they are finally able to gallop into an enclosure to find their hooves in their new home

But, for the moment, they are restless after a busy day, which started at an acclimatisation centre on a farm belonging to Prague Zoo, south of the Czech capital.

Before being enclosed in the transport boxes, they were put to sleep, tested and treated by vets.

Then they were taken by truck to a military airbase on Prague's outskirts and loaded onto the plane.

Marek and Vodicka monitor the horses throughout the trip, trying to calm them by talking and whistling, or with hay and pheromones.

Keeping them cool also helps and the plane is air-conditioned to 15-19 degrees C (59-66 F).

After landing on the dirt runway in the western Mongolian town of Bulgan Sum, the mares take a bumpy truck journey to the remote Takhin Tal reserve, where they are finally able to gallop into an enclosure to find their hooves in their new home.

In the first half of next year, they will be released into the wild to join either a lone stallion, or be part of a harem - a group of around a dozen horses led by a dominant stallion - in Takhin Tal, which is part of the Great Gobi B protected area spanning over 9,000 square kilometres (3,600 square miles).

Before being enclosed in the transport boxes, they were put to sleep, tested and treated by vets for any blood pressure issues

'Harem organisation is a very nice social structure, everybody has his own role,' Ganbaatar Oyunsaikhan, Great Gobi B director, told AFP.

Rangers able to discern a stallion or harem at a distance when it is barely visible to the untrained eye, even with binoculars, will monitor the mares as they explore their new home.

Prague Zoo has released a total 31 Przewalski's horses into the Mongolian wilderness, with funding for the project provided by zoos from across the globe.

'I decided to do this after the 'dzud', or very severe winter of 2009-2010, which had cut local (Przewalski's) horse numbers by two thirds to about 50,' said Prague Zoo director Miroslav Bobek, standing outside a yurt in the Mongolian steppe.

First documented by Russian scientist Nikolai Przhevalsky in 1881, the species was nearly extinct in the 1960s and is still listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bobek said the current population stands at around 2,400 horses, with 800 in the wild including in other parts of Mongolia and in China.

'All the living Przewalski's horses come from a genetic bottleneck of about 10 animals,' he told AFP.

Zoologists hope the four new mares from different zoos will improve the genetic mix of the Mongolian herd.

'If we only brought Czech horses, it would be the same blood. We're trying to make the population as diverse as possible,' says curator Marek.

New genetic research has suggested that the stocky horses that inspired dreamy pre-historic cave paintings are not the world's last remaining wild horse as had been thought.

The journal Science reported in February that, despite their pre-historic looks, Przewalski's horses were actually domesticated animals that escaped their human owner in the Botai area of northern Kazakhstan around 5,500 years ago.

Bobek described the study as 'very interesting', but is cautious.

'It could have been the other way round; the wild Przewalski's horse could have been the source for Botai breeders,' he said.

'In any case, the uniqueness of Przewalski's horse is obvious. We'll carry on.'

Mongolian and Chinese joint venture established www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A cooperation agreement on international auto transportation between Gantsmod and Gashuunsukhait border points was signed in Bayannuur city of Inner Mongolia, the People's Republic of China on July 18.

Europe has fined Google $5 billion. But that won't hurt it www.cnn.com

Europe has imposed a record fine on Google. But it's probably too little, too late.
The €4.34 billion ($5 billion) penalty announced Wednesday by the European Commission is the latest salvo in an extended battle between Google and regulators in Brussels, who have subjected the tech company to three antitrust investigations.

The fine may be a record, but it's one that Google (GOOGL) can absorb without too much pain. And the penalty won't cause Europeans to fall out of love with Google's popular Android operating system or its ubiquitous smartphone apps.

"Google can brush [the fine] off without an enormous amount of difficultly," said Richard Windsor, founder of the tech research firm Radio Free Mobile.

The Commission has ordered Google to give manufacturers more freedom when deciding which apps to install on Android smartphones. But that's unlikely to mean dramatic changes in Europe, where around 80% of smartphones use the operating system.

Google will have to stop preloading Android apps on phones, but Gmail, YouTube, Maps and Chrome have become so essential that customers are bound to seek them out.

"Most users are already completely hooked on Google services. They are going to download the apps anyway," said Windsor, adding that the ruling would have been more effective if it had been issued five years ago.

Related: Google's not alone. Europe has been taking on tech companies for decades

Mark Patterson, an antitrust expert and law professor at Fordham University, said the biggest win for Google was that the Commission did not order it to share the user data that forms the backbone of its business.

"Those data are the real basis of the success of its business ... it is far from clear that this decision could allow even a firm with the resources of Amazon, which has its own but different data, to become an effective competitor for Google."
Still, the ruling could encourage regulators in Europe and spark more complaints over the behavior of Google and other tech companies.

"Plaintiffs that were not sure whether they have a case will now feel emboldened and may be more confident to challenge Google," said Nicolas Petit, a professor at the University of Liege and visiting fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

He said content creators could be the next to take on Google over its handling of intellectual property.

"Google is a company with a lot of enemies, including in the United States," he said. "Lots of people will be inclined to read the decision as a form of discriminatory, protectionist behavior by the European Union, but ... the complaints often come from US companies."

Google said that it would appeal the decision.

"Android has created more choice for everyone, not less," it said in a statement. "A vibrant ecosystem, rapid innovation and lower prices are the classic hallmarks of robust competition."

Target tech
The Commission has been fighting Google on multiple fronts for almost a decade. Last year, it imposed a then-record €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) fine on the company for using its search engine to unfairly steer consumers to its own shopping platform.

A third antitrust case, which is still being investigated, involves the Google advertising placement service AdSense.

Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook (FB) have also been penalized by European regulators in recent years, leading to allegations that US companies have been unfairly targeted.

It's a charge that top EU antitrust official Margrethe Vestager has refuted.

"No matter what the political context ... if you breach Europe's antitrust rules and we find out, there will be a penalty, there is no surprise," she told reporters on Wednesday.

Tech companies have also been forced this year to bring their operations into compliance with GDPR, a new set of EU regulations that give consumers much more control over their personal data. Changes to copyright law that would affect tech firms are also being considered.

Google has responded by beefing up its lobbying efforts in the European Union. It spent between $6.1 million and $6.4 million on EU lobbying in 2016, according to official data. That compares to $700,000 in 2011.

EdCC exchange student from Mongolia missing since July 1 www.heraldnet.com

LYNNWOOD — An Edmonds Community College exchange student from Mongolia has been missing for almost three weeks, Lynnwood police said Wednesday.

9.6 thousand foreign workers from 92 countries employing in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ At the end of June 2018, 9.6 thousand foreign workers from 92 countries were employed under the Labor contract in Mongolia.

Market capitalization of listed domestic companies reaches MNT 2.5 trillion www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The money supply reached MNT 17.3 trillion at the end of June 2018, showing an increase of MNT 304.0 billion or 1.8 percent from the previous month and by MNT 3.9 trillion or 28.7 percent from the same period of the previous year.

Parliamentary working group to report on OT agreement review

In April, a Mongolian parliamentary working group was formed to review the implementation of the 2009 Oyu Tolgoi Investment Agreement between the Government and the UK-based Rio Tinto Group. Now, the working group is ready to deliver its findings to parliament on the implementation of the Investment Agreement. According to D.Terbishdagva, head of the working group, the report consists of reviews send by five sub-groups and 90 percent of all the original tasks have been completed. The reason why it is not totally finished is because the Mongolian National Audit Office and the Independent Authority against Corruption of Mongolia have failed to send their reviews on time. Therefore, the working group is planning to present its report to the Standing Committee without their reviews.

Flooding kills 48 in Mongolia www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, July 18 (Xinhua)-- Heavy flooding killed 48 people in Mongolia while downpours in the western Bayan-Ulgii Province affected more than 2,500 people, Mongolian officials said on Wednesday.