Westinghouse discussing group bid for Saudi nuclear tender - sources www.reuters.com

RIYADH/PARIS (Reuters) - Toshiba-owned Westinghouse (6502.T) is in talks with other U.S-based companies to form a consortium to bid in a multi-billion-dollar tender for two nuclear power reactors in Saudi Arabia, three industry sources said.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil producer, sent a request for information (RFI) to reactor builders worldwide last month in a first step towards opening a formal tender, Reuters has reported. A nuclear newcomer, it wants to use atomic power to generate electricity at home so it can export more crude.

Taking part in the tender would be a major step for reactor builder Westinghouse after it went into chapter 11 bankruptcy this year.

U.S. utilities also abandoned two half-finished Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at V.C. Summer in the United States. Toshiba, which is looking for a buyer for Westinghouse, also dropped plans to build Westinghouse reactors in Britain and India.

If other companies join U.S.-based Westinghouse in a consortium it would show that they still believe the AP1000 is a viable competitor to French, Russian, South Korean and Chinese reactor models.

Russian and South Korean companies have already said they plan to bid in a deal seen as one of the most promising prospects for the global nuclear industry, which is struggling to find contracts following Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.

A bid would also show that the United States remains a player in the small club of nuclear reactor builders in an industry which has important geopolitical and security implications.

One industry source familiar with discussions said Westinghouse and U.S. utility holding company Exelon were discussing forming a consortium that could also include other U.S. companies such as industrial contractor Bechtel Corp.

“They are creating a team that could address all the requirements,” the source said, referring to technology, security, construction, fuel and reprocessing.

A second industry source said Westinghouse and Bechtel were working together.

A third source with knowledge of the bidding process said Westinghouse is working on a bid for the tender and definitely hopes to take part but declined to comment on the consortium members.

Spokespeople for Westinghouse and Exelon did not immediately respond to a request for comment and declined to comment for Bechtel.

A fourth industry source in contact with both the Saudi and U.S. sides said there would be a bid by multiple U.S. companies, without naming them.

The source said companies have until late December to respond to the RFI and that the U.S. group is exploring the possibility of Export-Import Bank financing and bank financing.

A spokesman for the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE), the Saudi government agency tasked with the nuclear program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The program would make Saudi Arabia the second country in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to tap nuclear power after its neighbor the United Arab Emirates, which next year plans to start up the first of four South-Korean built reactors.

Industry specialists estimate the deal for Saudi Arabia’s two reactors could be worth around $12 billion, based on the $24 billion total cost for the UAE project, although it could vary depending on the vendor chosen.

Apart from Russia and South Korea, the possible U.S. bid in Saudi Arabia could also face competition from the Areva nuclear business of France’s state-owned EDF (EDF.PA), which said last month it was in talks with Riyadh about supplying reactors.

China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) is another potential vendor.

Saudi Arabia is considering building 17.6 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2032, the equivalent of up to 17 reactors. A senior Saudi nuclear official told a conference in Abu Dhabi last month that the kingdom was looking at a 1,000-1,600 megawatt range per reactor for the first two.

Industry sources have told Reuters the first two reactors could have a combined capacity of up to 2.8 gigawatts.

State-owned Russian nuclear group Rosatom said on Nov 2 it had sent initial proposals to Saudi Arabia for nuclear power generation and would bid if a tender was announced. The company has become a dominant player in the global nuclear industry following the financial troubles of Areva and Westinghouse.

Guns to plowshares: Kalashnikov targets Russia's grain shipping market www.rt.com

The Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov Concern wants to master a new market niche. Kalashnikov is planning to start a cargo transportation company to ship grain, according to company sources, as quoted by Russian business daily Kommersant.
The renowned gun maker will reportedly invest up to 10 billion rubles ($16.8 million) to build eight dry-cargo carriers with a cargo tonnage of seven thousand tons each. The freighters will ship grain products through the Volga - Caspian Canal, Azov and Black Seas and the Mediterranean basin. The shipments are expected to start by 2022.

Russia to Freeze Meat Imports From Brazil www.themoscowtimes.com

Russia will temporarily curb pork and beef imports from Brazil after monitors detected a banned growth stimulator in meat shipments.

MPP revises rulebook and action plan www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The 28th Congress of the Mongolian People’s Party is continuing on the second day at the Central Cultural Palace.

Marvell Technology to buy rival chipmaker Cavium for $6 billion www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd (MRVL.O) said on Monday it would buy smaller rival Cavium Inc (CAVM.O) for about $6 billion, as it seeks to expand its wireless connectivity business in a rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry.

Rio Tinto's M&A madness www.mining.com

Some companies are good at takeovers. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett has used well over a hundred acquisitions over decades to help leverage $1,200 of savings from his newspaper round into one of the world's largest business empires.

Rio Tinto Group isn't one of those companies. Indeed, it's hard to find an acquisition since its 2000 takeover of Australian iron ore miner North Ltd. that's not been a top-of-the-market catastrophe.

That should make investors nervous about the prospect that a big new lithium deal could be forthcoming.

Rio Tinto is working with advisers on a bid for a stake in Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, people familiar with the matter told Jack Farchy, Dinesh Nair and Thomas Biesheuvel of Bloomberg News on Friday.

SQM, as it's known, has been on a tear, with shares more than doubling this year alongside a lithium carbonate price that's tripled since the start of 2013. A purchase of the 32 percent stake held by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. would be worth about $4.8 billion at current prices.

If you think you've seen this movie before, it's because you have — and it's never ended well. Aluminum prices rallied more than 50 percent in the two years before Rio Tinto fended off Alcoa Inc. in a $38.1 billion bid for Canada's Alcan in 2007. Over the subsequent 24 months, the metal slipped close to its lowest levels in two decades, and Rio ended up being bailed out of its debt problems by Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd.

As if that experience wasn't enough, management were back three years later for another bite at a hot commodity. With the takeovers of Riversdale Mining Ltd. and Coal & Allied Industries Ltd. in 2010 and 2011, Rio Tinto sought to take advantage of then-booming demand for coking coal (up 62 percent during 2010) and thermal coal (up 50 percent). The former was disposed of three years later for about 2 percent of its $3.7 billion purchase price and is now the subject of a fraud claim by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Coal & Allied was sold earlier this year at an equity value of about a third what Rio Tinto and its partner Mitsubishi Corp. had originally paid.

Even a less prominent deal like the purchase of BHP Billiton Ltd.'s interest in Richards Bay Minerals hasn't panned out well. During 2011, prices for its main product, titanium dioxide, climbed 43 percent, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Since the $1.7 billion deal in 2012, they've mostly been in an extended slump. Last year, earnings from the division that includes Richards Bay, on South Africa's east coast, were less than a quarter of their level in the year of purchase.

All this should be a potent reason for Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastien Jacques to avoid taking a dip in SQM's Chilean salt lakes. As Gadfly has argued, the market for lithium isn't likely to be that tight over the medium term, despite current price exuberance. If Jacques wants to make a bullish bet, he's far better off spending money on Rio Tinto's own Jadar deposit in Serbia, which the company claims could be among the world's biggest.

Granted, Jacques may have learned from his predecessors' missteps. Getting into SQM's takeover data room would give Rio Tinto insight into the company's operations and a better understanding of the still-obscure lithium market in a way that would assist Jadar — a far better bet than an outright takeover, Bernstein analyst Paul Gait argued last week.

Shareholders had better hope that's right. For the $5 billion or so he would need to buy Potash Corp. out of SQM, Jacques could get a majority stake in Alcoa Inc., a company that Gadfly has contended would have far more attractive prospects. For all Rio Tinto's problems with aluminum takeovers, the current Alcoa is focused on more attractive upstream assets and generates more than twice SQM's Ebitda from an enterprise value that's only two-thirds as big.

Over the years, Rio Tinto's major acquisitions have proved an eerily prescient contrarian indicator for commodities. When they buy, it's a good idea to sell.

For the sake of his own reputation and that of his company, the best thing Jacques could do with this deal would be to walk away.

ADB Asian Development Bank : Extends Assistance to Sustain Education Quality, Access in Mongolia www.4-traders.com

ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA (21 November 2017)- The Asian Development Bank's (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a $50 million loan to help sustain access to and quality of pre-primary, primary, and secondary education in Mongolia, as continued economic difficulties pose challenges to the provision of quality education services in the country.

'Significant cuts in the education budget for 2017 and beyond constrain the government's capacity to mitigate further deterioration of education services,' said Asako Maruyama, Education Specialist at ADB's East Asia Department. 'This would result in lost opportunities for pre-primary, primary, and secondary education, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, unless some mitigating measures are implemented.'

With declining foreign direct investment and falling commodity prices, Mongolia's economic growth has slowed, from 17.3% in 2011 to 1.0% in 2016. The slowdown has led to large revenue shortfalls and cuts in government investment, requiring the government to adopt the Economic Recovery Plan supported by the International Monetary Fund and reduce public spending further. The education budget has been cut to a minimum, only enough to keep schools and kindergartens operating.

Meanwhile, seats in schools and kindergartens have increasingly become unavailable due to the growth in the school and kindergarten-aged population, which has been outpacing the construction and expansion of schools and kindergartens. During 2009-2015, enrollments in pre-primary education doubled, while the number of kindergartens increased only 1.5 times. Likewise, enrollments in primary and secondary education rose by 7.8% during 2012-2015, but only 13 schools were built. The gap in enrollment capacity has been widening particularly in Ulaanbaatar because of disproportionate population growth caused by internal migration. Of the 33 schools operating in three shifts in the country, 30 are in Ulaanbaatar.

The quality of education also suffers. The curriculum reform, which started in school year 2013 from primary education, remains incomplete without new curriculum for senior secondary education and reliable student learning assessment system. Adequate teaching and learning materials accompanying the new curriculum have not been developed or distributed to schools on time. Moreover, teachers, school managers, and local education administrators have received little training on the new curriculum.

The project aims to minimize these negative effects during this difficult economic period by narrowing the gap in the enrollment capacity of schools and kindergartens, and supporting the curriculum and associated assessment system reforms, provision of teaching and learning materials, and training of teachers, school managers, and local education administrators. It will also strengthen systems for planning and managing education services. The project will directly benefit about 15,000 children enrolled in 35 newly constructed or expanded schools and kindergartens.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, ADB is celebrating 50 years of development partnership in the region. It is owned by 67 members-48 from the region. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in cofinancing.

Mongolian kids hope Harumafuji stays in sumo world www3.nhk.org.jp

Children in Mongolia say they hope a scandal-hit sumo champion who hails from their country will continue to compete in the world of Japanese wrestling.

The British company opens OTR tire repair service in Mongolia www.mongolianbusinessdatabase.com

With more than forty years’ experience and repair systems installed across all seven continents, Monaflex is the industry leader in providing equipment for the repair and vulcanisation of damage in all tyres, ranging from the largest OTR earthmovers to the smallest truck tyre and it opened its official business with Mongolian partner Uran Tusul LLC last week.

Russia targets strategic Chinese energy market www.rt.com

Russian oil major Rosneft has inked a deal with Chinese partner CEFC Energy for crude oil deliveries starting next year. It is part of the companies’ long-term agreement announced earlier this year.