Mongolia rations gasoline as fuel shortages send drivers into long lines www.intellinews.com

In a city where getting stuck in traffic can already turn a short drive into a test of patience, Mongolians are facing a new question before they even start their engines: Will there be gasoline when they get to the pump?

Long lines have formed at gas stations across Ulaanbaatar as a nationwide fuel shortage forces the government to ration gasoline and scramble for new supplies.

Since early August, vehicles have been allowed to buy gasoline only on alternating days based on their licence plate numbers. Purchases initially were limited to 50,000 Mongolian tughrik (just short of $14), or about 14 litres (3.7 gallons), and authorities banned drivers from filling external fuel containers at gas stations.

The US Embassy in Ulaanbaatar said on August 7 that it was aware of long lines at fuel stations and that many stations were waiting for additional deliveries. The embassy said the shortages were nationwide and advised US citizens to delay nonessential travel, limit long-distance trips and consider moving up planned departures from Mongolia.

For tour operators who take visitors deep into Mongolia's countryside, the shortages have added another logistical hurdle to already lengthy journeys.

"It is terrible," said Suren Bat-Tur, a local tour operator who runs jeep trips for backpackers. He said some drivers had spent the night at gasoline stations only to receive a limited amount of fuel.

Bat-Tur said his four vehicles were in the countryside with tourists and that the drivers were having difficulty finding gasoline. Bat-Tur told his drivers that the amount of gasoline they could buy was less important than maintaining the quality of their tours. 

The price of gasoline has also risen. Bat-Tur said AI-92 gasoline, Mongolia's most widely used grade, was selling for about 2,850 tughrik per litre on August 9, up from about 2,550 tugriks 20 days earlier and 2,350 tugriks two months ago.

By August 10, Bat-Tur said, gasoline stations had begun allowing tourist vehicles to fill up without the previous purchase limit.

The restrictions reflect the growing pressure on a country that relies heavily on imported petroleum products to keep its cars, trucks and mining industry running.

Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Damdinnyam Gongor has portrayed the shortages as part of a broader global energy crisis, citing disruptions stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war and the conflict between the United States and Iran.

Mongolia continues to receive gasoline from Russia, by far its main fuel supplier. According to the state-run Montsame news agency, more than 10,000 tonnes of AI-92 gasoline entered Mongolia through the Sukhbaatar border crossing between August 1 and August 5, with additional shipments on the way.

But the government has been seeking additional suppliers as prices rise and geopolitical disruptions put pressure on fuel markets.

In a July 31 Facebook post, Damdinnyam said Mongolian fuel importers had begun negotiations with South Korea's GS Caltex over fuel quotas, prices and transportation, with an agreement to receive the first products by the end of August.

Prime Minister Uchral Nyam-Osor also met, on August 7, with the head of PetroChina Dachin Tamsag, a subsidiary of China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. 

PetroChina Dachin Tamsag agreed to supply 6,000 tonnes of AI-92 gasoline to Mongolia this month. Uchral asked the company to increase and stabilise supplies to 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes a month and seek ways to reduce prices.

On August 7, Damdinnyam said he was heading to Moscow for what he described as his ninth trip in the past year in his capacity as minister to negotiate fuel supplies. He also said he would travel to Kazakhstan and Beijing after his Moscow visit to discuss fuel supplies.

Bat-Tur said the fuel crisis was drawing mixed reactions from Mongolians.

"Some people are angry with the government and some people understand why this is happening," he said.

The government is also trying to build larger fuel reserves to cushion the country against future shortages.

Eighteen companies have begun building or expanding 22 petroleum storage facilities with the help of government-backed loans, officials said. One facility under construction in Ulaanbaatar is expected to add enough capacity to cover about 13 days of the city's AI-92 consumption when it opens later this month.

Another storage project in Ulaanbaatar, planned to be Mongolia's largest, is expected to add another eight to nine days of national fuel consumption when completed in 2027.

The government says the projects eventually will give Mongolia enough storage capacity to hold up to three months of national fuel consumption.

The government is also seeking to reduce its dependence on imported fuel over the longer term.

Prime Minister Uchral was in Dornogovi province on August 10 touring the oil refinery under construction there, as officials pushed to get the long-delayed project operating by 2028.

The government said construction of a 527-kilometre (327-mile) oil pipeline linking the refinery, the country’s first. to an oil field in eastern Mongolia is more than 90% complete. The pipeline will be Mongolia's first long-distance oil pipeline and is intended to ensure a steady supply of crude to the refinery.

Uchral said construction had been stalled for about two years because of financing and legal problems but that those issues had been resolved. About 4,500 engineers and technicians are now working on the project around the clock, the government said.

The $1.7bn refinery is designed to process 1.5mn tonnes of crude oil annually. Once operational, it is expected to produce enough fuel to meet about 55% of Mongolia's domestic oil needs.

But the long-term strategy offers little relief for motorists waiting in line at gas stations. 

For Bat-Tur, the shortage is not simply a matter of finding enough fuel to keep his vehicles moving. It is about making sure the tourists he takes into the countryside can still have the experience they came for.  

“It is important to keep the tour quality,” he said.

Views Exchanged with ADB on Education Sector Reform and Cooperation www.montsame.mn

Enkh-Amgalan Luvsantseren, Minister of Education, met with John Juhyun Jeong, the newly appointed Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Director for Mongolia. The Minister expressed his gratitude to the Country Director for prioritizing the education sector and choosing the Ministry of Education for his first official meeting following his appointment.

During the meeting, the Minister presented the ongoing reforms aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of education, narrowing the educational gap between urban and rural areas, supporting teachers' professional development, enhancing school management and evaluation systems, and accelerating the digital transition of the education sector.

The two sides also discussed strengthening the quality of vocational education and training to build a skills system aligned with labor market demands. Furthermore, they addressed developing a science, technology, and innovation learning environment at the general education level, preventing gender-based violence in school and dormitory settings, and improving the protection and support systems available to students.

In addition, the Mongolian side expressed its expectation to finalize and sign a USD 130 million project loan agreement for the second additional financing of the education sector during the ADB President's visit to Mongolia in September of this year.

“Foreigners who learn about Chinggis Khaan through history and The HU through music are becoming more interested in the Mongolian language” www.gogo.mn

The 13th International Congress of Mongolists began on August 10, 2026. Scholars attending the congress emphasized that Mongolians need to master their native language in order to preserve, carry forward, and share their rich cultural heritage.

Hungarian Mongol studies scholar Agnes Birtalan said, “I conduct research in a number of fields, including the Mongolian language and culture, religious studies, and ethnography, in Budapest.

In order for Mongolians to understand the heritage passed down from their ancestors, they must first have a strong command of their native language. Although the Mongolian language has a very rich vocabulary, most people communicate using only a limited number of words. Mongolians have preserved their traditional culture for hundreds of years. I would like to emphasize that if the Mongolian language is forgotten in the future, this great heritage will also be lost.”

L.Tserenchunt, senior lecturer of Mongolian language at Indiana University in the United States who was awarded the title and badge of “State Honored Teacher.”

She said, “I began teaching Mongolian abroad in 1993. Eleven years later, I was invited to Indiana University in the United States as a visiting scholar to teach Mongolian. Over the years, I have taught the Mongolian language to approximately 600–700 students.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the Mongolian language among young foreigners who have learned about Chinggis Khaan through history and discovered The HU through music. However, scholarships provided by the U.S. government have decreased significantly in recent years, which has negatively affected these students’ opportunities to study Mongolian.

I have noticed that we often take pride in calling ourselves descendants of Chinggis Khaan. However, our identity is defined by our native language and culture. It is not enough for a Mongolian to simply say, ‘I am Mongolian’ without having a good knowledge of the Mongolian language.

There are many cases in which children watch various online channels without receiving enough exposure to content in their native language. It is very important for parents and guardians to provide children with content in Mongolian and teach them riddles, proverbs, and other elements of traditional knowledge. Children should learn Mongolian while their brains are still developing. This is essential”. 

Maria Petrova, a Mongol studies researcher from Russia who was awarded the “Order of the Polar Star” medal, said, “I study the Mongolian language, literature, history, culture, and ethnography. I first entered the Mongolian Language Department at Leningrad University in 1981. Since then, I have been studying the Mongolian language and literature for more than 40 years.

I believe modern Mongolian literature has developed very well. I think writer G.Ayurzana has made an important contribution to the development of modernist literature. His novel Guramsan Tsadig opened a new page in Mongolian literature. The historical novel The Legend of the Shaman is also a very interesting and worthwhile book to read. I hope Mongolians will read these works and learn more about the rich and profound heritage of their native language.”

The three-day congress brings together 546 scholars from more than 30 countries. Organizers said the congress provides an important opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with Mongolian scholars, seek solutions to challenges facing Mongolian heritage and culture, and promote Mongolia’s cultural heritage to the wider public.

China to Support the Organization of COP17 in Mongolia www.montsame.mn

 Batbayar Shurenchuluun, State Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Climate, held a meeting with Cao Li, the Chargé d'Affaires of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Mongolia, and other relevant officials.

At the outset of the meeting, the State Secretary expressed gratitude to the PRC for providing a non-refundable financial grant of USD 1 million to support the organization of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Emphasizing the profound significance of COP17 in driving effective, collaborative efforts to combat desertification both in Mongolia and across the wider region, State Secretary Batbayar provided a brief update on the conference preparations. He noted that Mongolia will propose three major initiatives to the international community during the conference:

"Rangelands Flagship Initiative"

"Integrated Land and Water Management Initiative"

"Nature-Based Solutions for Sustainable Infrastructure"

The State Secretary requested China's active support and cooperation in advancing these three initiatives.

The two sides also discussed the development of a feasibility study for the "China-Mongolia Desertification Prevention and Control Cooperation Center," exploring how the center's construction and future operations will focus on mitigating environmental degradation and the impacts of climate change. The establishment of the center is planned in three phases; following successful first-phase negotiations, the parties exchanged views on the ongoing preparatory works and agreed to officially initiate Phase III.

Regarding human resource development and personnel training in the environmental sector, the parties highlighted a planned training program for executive-level officials titled "Mongolia-China Desertification Control and Monitoring Cooperation." The training will be organized by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in Beijing in September 2026.

Moving forward, both sides agreed to continue implementing joint training and capacity-building programs tailored to their mutual environmental needs and strategic priorities.

Mongolia Says Russia Agreed to Send Emergency Fuel Supplies Amid Shortages www.themoscowtimes.com

Russia has agreed to provide Mongolia with additional shipments of gasoline and jet fuel to help relieve a fuel shortage that officials in the landlocked country have blamed on high seasonal demand, Mongolian officials said late Monday.

Mongolian Industry Minister Gongoryn Damdinnyam said Russia committed to delivering an extra 25,000 metric tons of AI-92 gasoline and 5,000 metric tons of jet fuel by the end of August.

“I express my gratitude to the Russian government and its businesses for their assistance in helping us overcome this unprecedented difficult period,” he wrote in a post on X following talks with Russian officials and executives from Rosneft and Gazprom.

Russia accounts for up to 97% of Mongolia’s gasoline and diesel imports. 

In July, Russian fuel exports to Mongolia decreased to 173,000 metric tons from 186,400 in June as it grappled with its own shortages following a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries.

Shortages in Mongolia, meanwhile, are being driven by summer tourism and agricultural harvesting, according to local officials, who say that supply constraints have been exacerbated by shortages in Russia.

Minister Damdinnyam said that the increase in Russian fuel deliveries would eliminate “any need for rationing” in Mongolia, which has also secured additional supplies from China and South Korea.

Russia has extended its nationwide gasoline export ban through the end of the year, but Mongolia continues to receive shipments under carve-outs granted for existing intergovernmental trade agreements.

Moscow has not publicly commented on the agreement to supply Mongolia with emergency gasoline and jet fuel.

Mongolia is building its first domestic oil refinery, which is expected to be completed by 2028, to reduce its near-total dependence on Russia.

Mongolia's Eyeing London, Again www.capitalmarkets.mn

Mongolia has been absent from the world’s mining-finance capital for three decades. A listing, a mandate and a roadmap suggest that is finally changing.

The missing flag
London has, at one time or another, financed almost every resource economy on earth. Chilean copper, Kazakh uranium, Ghanaian gold: all have flags planted somewhere in the Square Mile. Mongolia, sitting on one of the world’s great mineral endowments, is the glaring exception.

The exceptions prove the rule. Rio Tinto, the mining giant, is arguably the biggest Mongolia play in London. Its most important growth asset is the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in the South Gobi, controlled outright since Rio bought out Turquoise Hill in 2022. But buying Rio for Mongolia exposure is like buying a food conglomerate for the chocolate. Beyond that, the London roster is essentially Petro Matad, the oil explorer that listed on AIM back in 2008 and has flown the Mongolian flag there more or less alone ever since.

The rest of the Mongolia story has been told on other people’s exchanges. Its exploration and mining assets have historically listed in Toronto; two Mongolian gold miners, Erdene Resource Development and Steppe Gold, ranked among the TSX’s top performers last year. Sydney is taking a growing share, with a steady stream of Mongolian juniors heading for the ASX. The country’s biggest company by market capitalisation, Mongolian Mining Corporation (MMC), has traded in Hong Kong since 2010, and nearly $6 billion of Mongolian bonds trade in Singapore. Yet London, home to the deepest pool of mining and emerging-market capital anywhere, somehow ended up with the smallest allocation.

Not for lack of trying
In January 2011, at the height of Mongolia’s boom (GDP grew more than 17% that year), the London Stock Exchange Group signed an exclusive strategic partnership to modernise and help run the Mongolian Stock Exchange. LSEG placed managers in Ulaanbaatar, installed its MillenniumIT trading engine and put a generation of brokers and regulators through its academy. The technology worked; the market around it did not yet exist. With a handful of active brokers, no institutional investor base and minimal free float, the MSE got a Formula 1 engine before anyone had built the racetrack. The exchange’s real development would come more than a decade later, under local stewardship.

Then came the Tavan Tolgoi saga. For much of the 2010s, Mongolia planned to float Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, operator of one of the world’s largest untapped coking-coal deposits, in a $3 billion IPO spanning Hong Kong, London and Ulaanbaatar. Banks were mandated, prospectuses drafted; elections happened, coal prices moved. By 2017, the government was telling Nikkei that an international IPO was “no longer needed.” London shrugged and moved on.

Two attempts, two lessons: infrastructure without issuers is a showroom, and a single mega-asset IPO is hostage to a single moment of political and commodity alignment.

So what’s changed?
Three things. For once, Mongolia is not coming to London with a single asset and a promise. It has several compelling stories to tell at once.

First, actual listings. In January 2025, Invescore Financial Group (ICFG) was admitted to the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange, becoming the first Mongolian company ever to list in London. Modest in size, major in signal: a Mongolian financial group can meet LSE standards, get admitted and trade. More consequentially, Mongolia’s large banks, Golomt Bank among them, are actively preparing for international listings. Banks are the broadest possible proxy for an economy; when they come to market abroad, Mongolia stops being a single-asset story.

Second, the government has brought in professionals. In July 2026, the Government of Mongolia signed an agreement with Franklin Templeton to explore consolidating stakes in state-owned enterprises into an investment fund, offering units to professional investors on domestic and international exchanges, with a first portfolio targeted for international markets by the end of 2027. The template already exists, and it works: the Uzbekistan National Investment Fund (UzNIF), managed by Franklin Templeton, listed on the LSE in May 2026 after a $604 million IPO, one of London’s largest in recent years and Uzbekistan’s first international equity offering. Mongolia has just signed up to do something very similar. And note the structural difference from the Tavan Tolgoi era: instead of betting everything on one giant asset going public at one perfect moment, this is a diversified portfolio, prepared to international valuation and governance standards, with a manager who has run this exact play before.

Third, the home market finally works. A 2021 banking law pushed Mongolia’s systemically important banks to go public, and they did: Golomt Bank’s 2022 IPO and Khan Bank’s 2023 IPO were the largest in the exchange’s history, drawing tens of thousands of first-time retail investors. Market capitalisation has multiplied several times over from the mid-2010s, domestic institutional money is entering the market, and a genuine IPO culture exists. The index providers have noticed: in September 2025, Khan Bank became the first Mongolian company included in FTSE Russell’s Frontier Market Index, putting Mongolia on the same screens as Kazakhstan and Vietnam. The 2011 problem has inverted: then, Mongolia had London-grade infrastructure and no market; now it has a market whose best issuers are ready for deeper pools of capital. An international listing is no longer a leap into the void; it is the next step on a staircase that already exists.

Two tailwinds
Critical minerals. In mid-2025, the UK and Mongolia signed a roadmap for cooperation on critical minerals, and the British Geological Survey is working with Mongolian counterparts on mapping and surveying the country’s endowment. The logic is straightforward: the UK wants diversified supply chains for the minerals underpinning the energy transition; Mongolia has copper, rare earths, fluorspar and more, and wants Western capital and “third neighbour” partnerships to develop them. Between a strategy and a mine sits, inevitably, a financing, and financing mines is the oldest trick in London’s book.

The neighbourhood effect. London investors have spent the past eight years building positions, and just as importantly mental models, in economies that look remarkably like Mongolia’s. Kazatomprom raised $451 million in London GDRs in 2018. Kaspi.kz’s 2020 London IPO made it the most valuable Kazakh listed company in history. Air Astana’s $370 million triple listing in February 2024 ranked among the LSE’s largest IPOs that year, and Uzbekistan made its sovereign-bond debut on the LSE in 2019. Resource-rich, landlocked, positioned between Russia and China, reforming state enterprises, young and digitising fast: an investor who has done the work on Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan does not need Mongolia explained from scratch. The analytical framework transfers and the risk rhymes: Mongolia arrives in London not as an exotic one-off, but as the next name in an asset class the City already owns.

September in London
This is the backdrop for the Mongolia Investment Forum: London 2026, which Capital Markets Mongolia hosts on September 15. The inaugural London edition, in October 2025, brought Mongolia’s Deputy Prime Minister and the British Ambassador to Mongolia together with the country’s leading banks and issuers on the London Stock Exchange’s own stage. The 2026 edition convenes at a moment when every thread above is live: a bank-listing pipeline forming, the Franklin Templeton portfolio working toward its 2027 target, and a critical-minerals partnership moving from communiqué to fieldwork.

For international investors, the calculus is simple: the most interesting time to meet a market is before its listings arrive, not after. Each of these threads points to a two-to-three-year window in which Mongolia’s London presence goes from near-zero to meaningful, and the people building that presence will be in one room this September. Attendance is by invitation, via capitalmarkets.mn.

Mongolia’s presence in London has been close to non-existent for the entire modern history of its capital markets. That was a fact; it is fast becoming a dated one. Mongolia is eyeing London again, and for the first time, London has good reasons to look back.

China Bars Its Top AI Engineers From Overseas Travel And Starts A Massive Data Center Build Out In Mongolia, While NVIDIA Parries By Mobilizing $500 Billion In AI Financing www.wccftech.com

The US and China are now decoupling at an accelerating pace, all the while trying to maintain their comparative advantage in areas of intrinsic strength. For instance, China has just taken a significant step towards halting the outflow of its engineering talent to the US, while NVIDIA has just inked a number of strategic partnerships - collectively worth half a trillion dollars - to facilitate the ongoing AI build out.

China tries to squeeze the outflow of its engineering talent as NVIDIA parries with an expansive initiative that unlocks $500 billion in additional AI financing
According to Bloomberg, China is instituting sweeping travel restrictions for AI engineers employed at strategically important firms such as Alibaba and DeepSeek. These restrictions are slated to go into effect as soon as September 15, and would mandate explicit authorization from the Chinese government for any subsequent foreign travel.

This move is might be a riposte to a major upcoming gambit by the US FCC, which is considering a ban on China-sourced optical transceivers that convert electrical signals into light pulses via an LED, and at the other end of a given fiber optic cable, convert the incoming light into electrical signals via a photodiode.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA has just inked an agreement with financial behemoths such as "Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize over $500 billion of third-party capital for the buildout of AI infrastructure over time."

While details are scarce at the moment, NVIDIA apparently has inked MOUs with six of the world's "premier financial institutions" to establish a compute financing platform that would unlock debt-based financing of NVIDIA's GPUs and data center racks for hyperscalers and neoclouds, and where those GPUs would presumably serve as collateral for the loans. This would eliminate the risk that NVIDIA itself is taking right now by signing circular financing deals with its partner neoclouds such as CoreWeave.

Meanwhile, China is building massive AI data centers in the desert of inner Mongolia, where the copious solar energy significantly reduces the cost to energize these data centers, which certainly seems to be a cheaper route than what Elon Musk is attempting by placing AI data centers in low-Earth orbit.

BY Rohail Saleem 
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.

ADB Appoints John Juhyun Jeong as New Country Director for Mongolia www.thediplomaticinsight.com

The Asian Development Bank has appointed John Juhyun Jeong as its new Country Director for Mongolia, with the appointment taking effect as he began the role in Ulaanbaatar this week.

Jeong will oversee ADB’s operations in Mongolia, including carrying out the country partnership strategy for 2025–2028, which backs Mongolia’s push for diversified, inclusive, and sustainable growth.

Commenting on the appointment, Jeong said ADB’s work in Mongolia rests on three strategic priorities: promoting diversified and inclusive growth, strengthening sustainability and resilience, and advancing empowerment and opportunity.

He added that he looks forward to partnering with the government, private sector, and development community to advance the country’s goals.

Jeong brings more than 17 years of professional experience to the post, including nine years at ADB. He most recently served as senior advisor to the ADB President, offering strategic guidance on key institutional priorities, and before that led private sector agribusiness investments within ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department, work that included projects in Mongolia itself.

Prior to joining ADB, Jeong worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York and Seoul, and served as a program officer with the United Nations World Food Program in Phnom Penh.

A national of the Republic of Korea, Jeong holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master’s in public administration in international development from Harvard Kennedy School, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University. He is also a CFA charter-holder.

Mongolia has been an ADB member since 1991, and the bank has committed nearly $5 billion in public and private sector investments to support the country’s development. That support is aligned with Mongolia’s New Recovery Policy and its Vision 2050 development blueprint.

The Mongolia appointment follows a similar move for Bangladesh, where ADB recently named Qingfeng Zhang as country director, part of a broader wave of leadership changes across the bank’s regional offices this summer.

ADB, headquartered in Manila, is a multilateral development bank founded in 1966 and owned by 69 member countries, 50 of them from Asia and the Pacific region.

Construction Underway on 22 Fuel Storage Facilities www.montsame.mn

Eighteen enterprises have begun building and expanding 22 petroleum product storage facilities — some of these facilities will become operational within days. The construction of the fuel storage facilities is due in part to support from the government and concessional loan financing.

Prime Minister Uchral Nyam-Osor visited the construction of the petroleum storage facilities of San Petroleum LLC and Shunkhlai LLC on August 8.

San Petroleum LLC is building a facility with a capacity of 16,000 m³ in the 20th khoroo of Songinokhairkhan district. An 8,000 m³ portion of this represents a total investment of MNT10 billion — financed through concessional loan from a commercial bank at an annual interest rate of 9%. Construction of the storage facility is 95% complete and is due to be fully operational by August 20. Once operational, the facility will fully cover 13 days of Ulaanbaatar's AI-92 petrol consumption. The Prime Minister instructed the relevant authorities to ensure that no permitting obstacles delay the facility's commissioning.

Shunkhlai LLC, meanwhile, is building what is considered Mongolia's largest petroleum storage facility, with a capacity of 100,000 m³, in the 21st khoroo of Songinokhairkhan district, just few steps apart from the San Petroleum facility. The plan calls for seven vertical steel tanks, each with a nominal capacity of 14,000 m³, a diameter of 36 meters, and a height of 14.5 meters. The total investment amounts to MNT 151.26 billion. It is also financed through concessional loan with a similar annual interest rate of 9% as San Petroluem. Construction for this facility is at 40% and is scheduled to be fully commissioned by December 31, 2027. Once operational, the facility will hold an additional 8 to 9 days of national consumption in reserve.

Uchral at the construction site said, "For the first time in 33 years, the government has begun building petroleum reserve storage — 22 facilities in total. It has also broken the deadlock on the oil refinery project, which had been stalled for two years: construction, which had halted at 20%, has now resumed and reached 60%. Work on oil supply and exploration, stalled for 30 years, has likewise begun, with an international open tender announced for 14 sites." Uchral added, "The government, is working at every level to counter price increases and to withstand the negative effects that global conditions could have on the country."

Beyond Ulaanbaatar, projects are also underway in Umnugovi aimag (four facilities, 37,000 m³, MNT 34.1 billion), Darkhan-Uul aimag (two, 11,000 m³, MNT 10.8 billion), Bayan-Ulgii aimag (two, 5,200 m³, MNT 7.5 billion), Orkhon aimag (one, 8,000 m³, MNT 7.5 billion), and Khovd aimag (one, 10,000 m³, MNT 8.7 billion).

Construction of these facilities are more widely on their progression: some are near completion, some are just starting construction. According to the government six facilities that are more than 85% complete — belonging to Morit Govi Oil LLC, Tes Petroleum LLC, San Petroleum LLC, Sod Mongol Group LLC, Wellcom LLC, and Petroline LLC — have entered the final stages of construction and are now undergoing equipment installation, testing, calibration, and preparations for commissioning.

The enterprises that received concessional loans have signed liability agreements with the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority, the state administrative body responsible for petroleum affairs.

"The 2027 state budget will continue the policy of supporting enterprises to expand fuel storage capacity," said Damdinnyam Gongor, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources. "The country will gain the capacity to store up to three months of consumption, meaningfully reducing the risks and difficulties associated with sudden fuel price spikes and shortages that can arise over the short term. Concessional loans will be provided to all qualifying enterprises that have a construction site, a design, and meet the requirements," the minister said.

Special Passenger Transport Regulations to Be Implemented During COP17 www.montsame.mn

Special passenger transport regulations will be implemented during the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, taking place in Ulaanbaatar on August 17–28.

Starting August 13, 60 buses across 5 routes will connect Chinggis Khaan International Airport to delegates' hotels. Additionally, 100 public transport buses will operate on 17 routes connecting 35 hotels to the main conference venue from 6:00 AM to 8:30 PM. Participants can travel free of charge by presenting their conference registration badges. Meanwhile, the regular paid public transport service operating hourly on two routes from the international airport to the capital will continue as usual, according to Munkhnasan E., Head of the Road Transport Policy and Regulation Department of the Ministry of Road and Transport Development, during a press conference at the MONTSAME news center.

Due to temporary traffic management around the Narantuul and Dunjingarav international trade areas during the conference, short-turnaround buses will operate on two public transport routes for local residents and market employees. Specifically, traffic around Narantuul, Dunjingarav, Shine Zuun Ail commercial centers, and Ikh Mongol Street will be restricted, and parking lots for approximately 1,500 vehicles at Dunjingarav and 2,000 vehicles at Narantuul market will be closed.

Considering the expected increase in traffic congestion during the event, conference preparations, and the start of the new academic year, an even-odd license plate rotation system will apply daily from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM across the city without designated zones, from August 15 through September 12. This restriction will not apply to public transportation, police, emergency medical services, emergency management, or media vehicles. However, on September 1, all vehicles will be permitted to participate in traffic without plate number restrictions.

COP17 will focus on desertification, land degradation, drought, pasture management, and land restoration. Currently, over 6,000 delegates from more than 190 countries have registered to attend, including approximately 150 high-level dignitaries.