Two-time world champion and Olympic champion Lukáš Krpálek, a Czech judoka visited Mongolia between October 18th and 26th, 2021. A joint training with prominent Mongolian judokas and young athletes from the Mongolian Judo Association in Ulaanbaatar, and also in Bulgan province was the main activity throughout his visit.

Lukáš Krpálek was welcomed by the Mayor of Ulaanbaatar and Governor of the capital city of Mongolia, a former wrestler, Mr. Sumiyabazar Dolgorsuren, and Deputy Foreign Minister Munkhjin Batsumber. During his stay he also met with the governors of three provinces (Orkhon, Bulgan, and Arkhangai).

In the city of Erdenet, Lukáš Krpálek took part in the opening of the next stage of apartment construction by the Czech developer Finep, the most significant investor in the Czech-Mongolian relations. Finep, in cooperation with a local partner in Erdenet, is implementing the construction of 1,650 European standard apartments and is significantly involved in the development of the city's infrastructure. Finep discussed future city development projects in Erdenet during the Investment Forum, also in Bulgan and Ulaanbaatar, and with representatives of major Mongolian companies in the field of logistics and construction. In Bulgan, a contract for the construction of 700 flats was concluded between the city of Bulgan and Finep. On this occasion, Lukáš Krpálek participated as a guest in a Mongolian National Wrestling tournament.

Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Mongolia Jiří Brodský said on the visit: “We had been preparing for this visit for a long time in the scope of cooperation with the Embassy of Mongolia in the Czech Republic and Finep. I am glad that we managed to realize it despite the COVID-19 restrictions. Mongolia is a country of martial arts, with a number of great wrestlers and judokas. Thus I respectfully appreciate Lukáš Krpálek coming to Mongolia to promote Czech sports and helping us open the door to new business opportunities between the two countries with the participation of Pavel Rejchrt, a Member of Board of Finep Holding, Honorary Consul of Mongolia in the Czech Republic, and a laureate of the Polar Star Order of Mongolia, in recognition of his invaluable contribution to Czech-Mongolian trade relations.

For the first time Mongolian carriers have transported freight by road to Czech Republic of the European Union, reports Ministry of Road and Transport Development through its website.

Specifically, four vehicles of ‘Montransauto’ LLC and ‘Khar Anar’ LLC carrying masks, medical gloves, equipment and other transit goods left Erlian, China on October 11, and the goods were delivered to the Czech Republic on the 23rd.

Road transport plays an important role in transportation of Mongolia, a country with a vast territory and where infrastructure is poorly developed, which means 98 percent of the passenger transport and 65 percent of freights are transported by road.

Since 1993, Mongolia has established intergovernmental agreements on international road transport with 12 countries, namely Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, DPRK, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary and Slovenia. Slovenia became the 12th country when Mongolia and Slovenia signed the “Agreement between the Government of Mongolia and the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on the international transport of passengers and goods by road” in Ljubljana on 19th of August of this year.

A water treatment plant equipped with modern solutions and technology was put into operation on October 30. The plant is the first water treatment plant built in Mongolia for the purpose of treating surface water.

More specifically, the construction work carried out for the project, ‘Taishir-Altai Water Supply’, that kicked off in 2019 was fully completed and put into operation in the framework of the financial cooperation agreement established between the Governments of Mongolia and Austria on June 10, 2016.

With a 54-km water pipeline connecting Altai city of Gobi-Altai aimag with Zavkhan River as well as corresponding equipment, the newly built plant will supply the city’s residents with drinking water that meets health standards.

Once the ‘Taishir-Altai’ water treatment plant begins to be operated at full capacity, a certain amount of surface water will be put into circulation to resolve the water supply issue for the local population as well as industries and farmers, creating a safe, secure water supply for Altai city. With the use of fresh surface water that meets health standards, it is expected to significantly decrease the cases of infectious diseases and illnesses caused by water quality, and create the opportunity for urban development issues to be resolved.

Speaker of the State Great Khural G.Zandanshatar and corresponding officials worked in the aimag to become acquainted with the progress of the construction work being carried out in the region.

Mongolia logged 1,188 new COVID-19 infections and 12 more related deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing the respective national tallies to 359,396 and 1,661, the country's health ministry said on Sunday.

Among the new confirmed cases, four were imported from abroad.

Currently, there are a total of 67,567 active COVID-19 cases across the country, and most of them are receiving home-based care due to a shortage of hospital beds and medical staff, according to the ministry.

The Asian country has seen rising cases of the highly contagious Delta variant, although 65.8 percent of its population has received two COVID-19 vaccine doses.

President of Mongolia U.Khurelsukh has departed today to take part in the World Leaders Summit: 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow, UK on November 1-2, 2021.

President U.Khurelsukh will deliver a statement on Mongolia’s position on combating global warming and climate change and hold bilateral meetings with Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Yannick Glemarec, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund, Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank's Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific Region, Masatsugu Asakawa, President of the Asian Development Bank, as well as heads of state and government of some countries.

A new data centre which meets the highest international standards on reliability is set to open in Mongolia in 2022. It will be the first in the country to be certified Tier III, making a positive contribution to Mongolia’s technical and economic development.

New certified Tier III data centre aims to be the best in Mongolia | Royal HaskoningDHV

The new facility is being opened by the ICT Group JSC, which plays a leading role in the information technology market in Mongolia – a sector that has been designated as strategically important for development by the Mongolian government. The Group has two existing data centres, which have secured a strong position in the provision of local hosting services.

Royal HaskoningDHV Data Centres team have been contracted to provide technical advice for the new data centre and are implementing the latest international standards. Flexibility and future-proofing are incorporated in the design, alongside the required infrastructure capacity, reliability, safety and logistics.

Meeting the highest standards at the global level

“Tier III means the data centre meets stringent standards on the availability of operation. To prove this, the facility will be certified by an internationally authorised body, all with the goal to get the best data centre in Mongolia,” said Martien Arts, Mission Critical Facilities Director at Royal HaskoningDHV. “It will clearly demonstrate to existing and future customers that the Mongolian data centre is meeting the highest standards at the global level.”

Cross-border payment hub Tranglo is bringing its services to Mongolia, with an eye on improving payments there, crowdfundraiser.com reported.

“The entry into Mongolia is in line with our plans this year,” Tranglo CEO Jacky Lee said. “Mongolia is a key market with huge potential. It received about $550 million in remittances last year against the backdrop of a global pandemic.”

Lee added that Tranglo wants to change the way people in Mongolia “receive remittances by bridging the payment gaps with our technology.”

Cash pickups and direct-to-bank are the payment channels used most of the time in Mongolia. Looking ahead, Tranglo said it is considering a blockchain integration with Ripple’s RippleNet.

Tranglo’s proprietary payments tool, Tranglo Connect, facilitates global payments for banks and businesses. It offers integrated payouts and partner services while “unifying the end-to-end payment process.”

Working across 20 countries, Tranglo Connect also has the Tranglo Business service, which enables people to send and receive payments through a multi-country virtual account service.

“The funds are stored in virtual accounts, where they can be disbursed to suppliers in six countries,” the company said in the release.

Tranglo recently teamed with Ripple, which holds a 40% stake in the firm, to introduce services in the Philippines.

Founded in 2008, Tranglo has offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Dubai and London, and a global network that includes 100 countries, 2,500 mobile operators, 1,300 banks or wallets and 130,000 cash pickup points.

Earlier this month, Ripple also partnered with Qatar National Bank, which unveiled its global cross-border payment strategy.

“The International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook [..] is probably the closest thing to a bible in the energy world,” says a Bloomberg article following the publication of the 2021 edition.

Released earlier than usual in time for the Conference of Parties (COP26) starting in Glasgow next week, this edition – the 44th – “has been designed, exceptionally, as a guidebook to COP26”.

At 386 pages IEA WEO 2021 is quite the tome (download here). Under Section 6.3.1, you’ll find the energy bible’s take on “critical minerals”. It is six pages in total.

Those six pages may be headlined critical minerals, but it’s hard to detect a sense of urgency in Section 6.3.1:

“The rapid deployment of low-carbon technologies as part of clean energy transitions implies a significant increase in demand for critical minerals.”

We have questions

The word “significant” used here contains multitudes (lithium “100 times current levels” according to the IEA’s own calculations) and the Paris-based firm has some questionne:

“The prospect of a rapid increase in demand for critical minerals – well above anything seen previously in most cases – raises questions about the availability and reliability of supply.”

With only six pages to work with, the IEA has to be succinct in its appraisal of the mining industry:

“The [supply] challenges are compounded by long lead times for the development of new projects, declining resource quality, growing scrutiny of environmental and social performance and a lack of geographical diversity in extraction and processing operations.”

Questions raised. Challenges compounded. Take that global warming!

Mining ghost protocol

Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie has also been doing some research ahead of COP26.

Woodmac, which beat the IEA by four years, releasing its first oil report in 1973, is expanding its mining and metals practice, most recently with the acquisition of London-based Roskill.

A new report by Julian Kettle, SVP of Woodmac’s metals and mining division, and senior analyst Kamil Wlazly, answers the questions about the availability of supply in the very title:

Mission impossible: supplying the base metals for accelerated decarbonisation

Woodmac is refreshingly blunt in its assessment of mining’s role in fighting climate change:

“The energy transition starts and ends with metals.”

“Achieving global net zero is inexorably linked to base metals supply.”

“Base metals capex needs to quadruple to about $2 trillion to achieve an accelerated energy transition.”

Whoomp, there it is.

The hidden ones

There are many eye-popping graphs in Mission impossible (download here) but this one perfectly illustrates why the decarbonisation goals of the Conference of Parties, without plans for new mines, only add hot air to the warming planet.

COP26 will be a colossal mining cop-out

Woodmac gets straight to the point: “delivering the base metals to meet [net zero 2050] pathways strains project delivery beyond breaking point from people and plant to financing and permitting.”

Copper, which Woodmac emphasizes “sits at the nexus of the energy transition” stands out particularly.

The 19 million tonnes of additional copper that need to be delivered for net-zero 2050 implies a new La Escondida must be discovered and enter production every year for the next 20 years.

Even if you focus on just one of the obstacles bringing new copper supply online – the time it takes to build a new mine – and leave aside all other factors, net-zero 2050 has zero chance.

Great great grandfathered in

Consider that among the world’s largest copper mines, La Escondida is a relative newcomer – it was discovered in 1981, and only hit 1 million tonnes 20 years later. (MINING.COM’s official measure of copper production is the escondida which equals one million tonnes.)

The weighted average discovery year of the planet’s top 20 biggest copper mines is 1928. US number one mine Morenci (less than half an escondida in 2020) was discovered in 1870. Chile and the world’s number two copper mine Collahuasi (O.63 escondida) dates back to 1880.

When Congo’s Kamoa-Kakula went into production in May this year it was the biggest new mine to do so since Escondida. By 2028 it will produce 840,000 tonnes a year. Kamoa-Kakula is a poster child for rapid mine development, yet Robert Friedland’s exploration team discovered the deposit back in 2003.

Let it be resolved

With ample reserves, the US has a number of uncommitted projects that would support the Conference of Parties and their wannabe cheerleader, the Biden administration, advancing its climate goals.

A top contender is the Resolution project in Arizona, near the town of Superior in the area known as the Copper Triangle.

Contained copper tops 10 million tonnes making it the sixth-largest measured deposit in the world. It’s an underground high-grade mine that shrinks its environmental footprint.

The world’s number one and two mining companies, BHP and Rio Tinto, have already spent $2 billion on it, including reclamation of a historical mine. The deposit was discovered in 1995 and 26 years later remains stuck in permitting hell.

Looks like a perfect candidate for fast track approval to help with those lofty climate goals and create those millions of promised green jobs.

Right? Trump – five days before leaving office – publishes a pivotal environmental report on the project.

Wrong. Biden rescinds the study and Democrats add specific wording to the $X.X trillion infrastructure bill that would block Resolution from going ahead.

Perhaps not surprising then, the news that BHP and others are looking at the previously shunned African copperbelt.

When central Africa is a friendlier jurisdiction for miners than the US, there may be something wrong with your strat… For more see above and below.

We process, you dig

The White House’s policy is one of relying on other countries to supply metals to the US because “it’s not that hard to dig a hole. What’s hard is getting that stuff out and getting it to processing facilities.”

A strategy that worked so well for the US with rare earths.

Perhaps the White House got the idea from Indonesia, which insists miners build processing plants and refineries to own the entire battery metal supply chain and by extension huge chunks of electric vehicle manufacture.

Tiny difference though: the grand design of Jakarta, like Beijing, Santiago, et al, includes the first link in the supply chain.

And when things go wrong in metals supply for automaking, they go really wrong, as the EU found out this month.

Overburdening overburden

Biden desperately wants a deal before COP26 to brag about all the ways it fights emissions by subsidizing American electric cars, windmills and solar panels overseas lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, silver, and rare earth mining companies.

As if the permitting process isn’t torture enough, there’s more in Biden’s bill that’ll make miners and explorers gnash their teeth and pull their hair out.

Also included in the reconciliation spending measure is an 8% gross – yes, gross isn’t it – royalty on existing mines and 4% on new ones. New ones? Ha!

There would also be a 7 cent fee for every tonne of rock moved.

This is a particularly stupefying proposal. Not easy to find anything in the tax code that shows this kind of ignorance of how an industry operates, but it would not be dissimilar to taxing farmers for every acre ploughed (multiplied by the length of the blades just to make sure you precisely measure the displaced dirt), regardless of any harvest.

What’s another year

It was two years ago almost to the day on the occasion of a Greta Thunberg protest in MINING.COM’s hometown of Vancouver, that this paper declared Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the mining industry’s unlikely heroines.

We urged miners to embrace the goals of the environmental movement and initiatives like the Green New Deal.

With all the glaring holes drilled into COP26’s decarbonisation plans, it sure feels like it was Greta and AOC that copped out of this embrace, not mining.

A new report by consulting firm Kearney shows Chinese cities grew by over 3% on average this year, thanks to their quick recovery and effective pandemic control measures.

In contrast, other cities around the world saw average growth in their Global Cities Index (GCI) score of less than 1% as a result of the coronavirus crisis, while some even experienced negative growth.

“In the wake of a year of devastation and uncertainty, global cities proved their resilience. Now, as they seek to lead the global recovery, cities must define a new approach to globalism with resilience and urban well-being at the core,” said the report.

China also performed strongly in the Global Cities Outlook (GCO), rising by over 3% over the past five years, the fastest in any region. Kearney said that Chinese cities have narrowed the gap with their European and North American counterparts.

Leading global cities have demonstrated resilience and adaptability despite initially being hit hard by Covid-19 due to their high connectivity and density.

New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo retained the top four positions on the index. Los Angeles rose by two positions to fifth place. Beijing settled in sixth, followed by Hong Kong, while Shanghai rose two places to break into the top 10 for the first time.

The report covered and ranked 156 cities, including 31 in China.

Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The number of argali sheep -- a near endangered species -- in western Mongolia has increased to 4,095, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The census of argali sheep, a species of wild sheep living along Mongolia's western border with Russia, was conducted from 2019 to October this year in the Mongolian provinces of Bayan-Ulgii and Uvs, the WWF-Mongolia said in a statement on Thursday.

There are nine subspecies of argali across the world. Among them is Altai argali mainly living in Mongolia and bordering countries. Given its decreasing population overall, argali is a near endangered species. It is the first time that the regional population of argali sheep has exceeded 4,000.