ECB urges fines on eurozone members for failure to comply with reform rules www.rt.com

The European Central Bank (ECB) has called for large fines on EU countries that fail to adopt the bloc’s economic reform recommendations.

Oyu Tolgoi achieves 88.7 percent recycling level, Q2 report says www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Oyu Tolgoi released the latest edition of its scorecard updating its performance for the second quarter of 2017 on July 28. Oyu Tolgoi continues to work with safety as its core priority. The All Injury Frequency Rate stood at 0.27 per 200,000 hours worked in the second quarter, as the operations and underground teams maintain significant focus in building a strong safety culture across the business. In Q2’17, 141,800 hours of safety training was delivered to over 11,000 employees and contractors, reports ot.mn.

Armando Torres, CEO of Oyu Tolgoi, said, “The second quarter marked an important milestone for the business the three millionth tonne of concentrate shipped, less than four years after the first shipment was delivered to our customers. This achievement is built on the exemplary efforts and support of our workforce, partners, and shareholders. As we look to the second half of the year, we remain focused on delivering on our business targets for 2017 and maintaining the momentum of the underground project.
“Safety remains our first and foremost priority on this journey – and we continue to work hard to build a lasting safety culture within our business, and beyond.”
Oyu Tolgoi continued to deliver on its commitment to environmental protection and stewardship, particularly in the area of water use with 0.373 cubic metres of water per tonne of ore processed during the reporting quarter, significantly better than the global average of 1.2 cubic metres of water per tonne, and achieved a recycling rate of 88.7 per cent.
Oyu Tolgoi also continued to support sustainable development programmes in Umnugobi with an investment of US$3.1mn over the quarter. The Oyu Tolgoi-funded Bulk Water treatment plant in Khanbogd started operations, and new programmes aimed at improving pasture management and women employment were started in the quarter.
In terms of production, material mined increased 3.5 per cent in Q2’17 vs Q1’17, while grades for the quarter were flat compared to Q1’17. Copper and gold production for Q2’17 was essentially in-line with Q1’17 production despite the planned maintenance shutdown. Sales of copper in Q2’17 decreased 5.6 per cent over Q1’17 due to lower concentrate volumes during the quarter. Gold sales in Q2’17 decreased 28.1 per cent over Q1’17 due to sales in Q1’17 including some higher-grade concentrate from Q4’16.
Turquoise Hill expects Oyu Tolgoi to produce 130,000 to 160,000 tonnes of copper and 100,000 to 140,000 ounces of gold in concentrates for 2017.

Shares Seesawing on Volume: Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd (0276.HK) www.evergreencaller.com

Shares of Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd (0276.HK) is moving on volatility today 2.17% or 0.005 from the open. The HKSE listed company saw a recent bid of 0.235 on 1420000 volume.

Investors may be wondering how to tackle the markets at current levels. Many investors may feel like they have missed out on the markets getting to where they are today. It may be a case of missed trades or being too cautious, but a stellar forward thinking strategy may be just what is needed to get back on track. Studying various sectors may help provide some insight on where to go from here. Investors may become very familiar and comfortable with a certain sector, and they may be completely missing out on opportunities from other fast growing sectors. Investors may also need to take a long-term approach which may include creating a diversified portfolio that takes many different factors into consideration. With the enormous amount of uncertainty that follows the global investing world on a daily basis, it may be helpful for investors to be able to keep their emotions in check. Studying the hard data may prove to be very useful when trying to separate truth from fiction in the equity markets.

Taking a deeper look into the technical levels of Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd (0276.HK), we can see that the Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -25.00. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd (0276.HK) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -2.92. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd’s 14-day RSI is currently at 52.45, the 7-day stands at 57.25, and the 3-day is sitting at 66.35.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Mongolia Energy Corp Ltd (0276.HK) is sitting at 21.84. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

Danshig Naadam to attract over 3000 tourists www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The 2017 Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam festival will be watched by about 3000-4000 tourists, said the organizers.

Delegates led by mayor S.Batbold visiting Bangkok www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ S.Batbold, Mayor of Ulaanbaatar City, along with other officials, has visited Bangkok, Thailand. The delegates led by the Mayor were welcomed by Ambassador of Mongolia to the Kingdom of Thailand T.Tugsbilguun.

Mongolia bans grain exports as hottest temperatures in 56 years cause drought www.akipress.com

AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia has suspended grain exports with as much as a third of its farmland suffering from severe drought after temperatures last month rose to the highest in more than half a century, Reuters said. 

The Ministry of Agriculture and Industry has banned grain exports as it prepares for a shortfall in the autumn harvest. Temperatures in Mongolia reached their highest level in 56 years in June, according to weather reports, threatening crop production.

Oil hits two-month high on tighter U.S. market, Venezuela sanctions risk www.reuters.com

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices hit a two-month high on Monday, lifted by a tightening U.S. crude market and the threat of sanctions against OPEC-member Venezuela.

Brent crude futures were at $52.82 per barrel at 0443 GMT on Monday, up 30 cents or 0.6 percent. Prices hit $52.90 per barrel earlier in the day, their highest since May 25.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were up 16 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $49.87 per barrel, and the entire WTI curve is close to moving back over $50 per barrel, with only September and October a notch below that level.
The price rises put both crude benchmarks on track for a sixth consecutive session of gains.
Prices have risen around 10 percent since the last meeting of leading members by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major producers, including Russia, when the group discussed potential measures to further tighten oil markets.
"U.S. inventories are showing massive drawdowns, Saudi Arabia seems intent on playing its role as the world's swing producer (and) impending sanctions on Venezuela by the U.S. will almost certainly be oil price-supportive," said Jeffrey Halley, analyst at futures brokerage OANDA.
The United States is considering imposing sanctions on Venezuela's vital oil sector in response to Sunday's election of a constitutional super-body that Washington has denounced as a "sham" vote.
But traders said the biggest price supporter was currently a tightening U.S. oil market.
"Strong increases in the price of oil ... (were) fueled in large part by the substantial drawdowns in U.S. inventories over the past several weeks," said William O'Loughlin, analyst at Rivkin Securities.
"A continuation of this trend could indicate the oil market is rebalancing thanks to the production cuts by OPEC and Russia," he added.
After rising by more than 10 percent since mid-2016, U.S. oil production dipped by 0.2 percent to 9.41 million barrels per day (bpd) in the week to July 21.
U.S. crude inventories have fallen by 10 percent from their March peaks to 483.4 million barrels.
Drilling for new U.S. production is also slowing, with just 10 rigs added in July, the fewest since May 2016.
The tighter market was also visible in the price curve, which shows backwardation in the front end.
Backwardation is a market condition in which prices for immediate delivery of a product are higher than those later on.
Brent prices for delivery in September are currently around 35 cents above those for October.

Pushing globe into easy pay mode www.chinadaily.com.cn

WeChat Pay expands internationally to catch up with, and possibly overtake, market leader Alipay

WeChat Pay, the mobile payment tool developed by internet major Tencent Holdings Ltd, is accelerating overseas expansion as it narrows the gap with first-mover Alipay in China's red-hot digital payment arena.

In its latest endeavor, the company has applied for a license in Malaysia to offer local payment services via the app. If it is approved, the license would allow local users to link their local bank accounts to WeChat Pay and make payment in the local currency, the Malaysian ringgit.

The push into the Malaysian market highlights Tencent's ambition to capitalize on a growing number of internet-savvy users who are getting used to making payments by phone. Tencent wants to vie for a bigger slice of the overseas markets wherever the Chinese tourists and the diaspora have a growing presence.

The development comes just days after both WeChat Pay and Alipay struck a deal with US digital payment firm Stripe earlier this month, allowing merchants who use the latter to process transactions to accept Chinese payment tools on their websites and apps.

Tencent has taken the payment service to the United States two months earlier through a partnership with Silicon Valley-based mobile payment startup Citcon.

Under the agreement, WeChat users in China can extend their cashless transactions for shopping and taxis when they travel abroad.

WeChat is quickly gaining momentum as its 938 million active users－more than double that of Alipay's 450 million－form the backbone of China's mobile banking market, which clocked transactions worth 18.8 trillion yuan ($2.77 trillion) in the first quarter of this year, according to Beijing-based consultancy Analysys.

WeChat Pay's share grew exponentially from low double-digit level just two years ago to 40 percent by the first quarter, while that of Alipay shrunk to 54 percent, according to Analysys.

Still it is playing the "chase and catch up" game with Alipay, with the latter having a wider global network for now. At the current stage, WeChat Pay is primarily targeting Chinese outbound tourists, who are becoming affluent and accustomed to the convenient "scan and pay" payment experience at home.

"The short-term target is still Chinese tourists," said Grace Yin, director of WeChat Pay's global operations, on the sidelines of a technology conference in Hong Kong. "The priority is nearby countries most frequented by them, such as those in Southeast Asia."

Currently, such cross-border transactions are available in 13 countries and regions, covering over 130,000 shops and supporting payments in 10 currencies. To beef up such capability, the internet giant also led a $13 million funding round in Australian cross-border payment firm Airwallex.

Thailand is on the list of countries where WeChat Pay has received a warm welcome. Bangkok's duty-free outlet King Power has seen sales significantly jump as more Chinese tourists adopted WeChat for payment, effectively shortening the long queue at checkouts, said the store's marketing manager Kuang Wei.

"(WeChat Pay) literally extends the shopping experience from China to Thailand…shoppers don't have to worry about exchange rate or even the language barrier－simply scan and pay," he said.

The store also publishes promotional ads and discount coupons through its WeChat official account, a service now being picked up by most merchants doing business in China as a gateway to customers.

In Japan, three quarters of stores inside Tokyo's Haneda Airport now accept WeChat as a payment option, boosting monthly revenue "by a large margin", said Takeshi Fujin, deputy senior executive officer.

"Duty-free stores and even taxis in Tokyo, which is a popular destination for Chinese travelers, can now be found using WeChat Pay," said Hunter Williams, partner of global consultancy Oliver Wyman.

"This follows the expansion of UnionPay's acceptance abroad," he said.

Private Japan firm's rocket launch fails www.nhk.or.jp

The first rocket to be developed by a private Japanese firm has apparently failed to reach the target altitude.

SDF joins peacekeeping drill in Mongolia www.nhk.or.jp

About 1,000 troops from 26 countries are taking part in a peacekeeping exercise in Mongolia.