The Asgat silver deposit is located in Nogoon nuur soum, Bayan-Ulgii aimag, bordering the Republic of Altai and the Republic of Tuva of Russia. It has been closed down for 29 years since 1991 when it was last underwent geological exploration and mapping.

According to the Emergency Management Agency, the emergency management officers are working in a cold temperature of -20C to -30C degrees at an altitude of 2780 meters above sea level to remove the area from the snow and ice covers collected over many years and restore the engineering and safety harnesses.

Works launched in November 2019 following the government’s earlier decision to put the Asgat deposit, included in the list of strategically important deposits of Mongolia, into economic circulation. On January 16 of this year, the Government decided to transfer the Asgat silver deposit from ‘Mongolrostsvetmet’ company to the ownership of Erdenes Mongolia LLC, which was charged to start the mining development at the Asgat deposit and settle the issue of investment funding for development.

As reported by the NEMA, emergency management and response personnel of Mongolia managed to save lives of 1658 people and properties worth MNT 59.1 billion after working in a total of 4681 emergency disaster situations nationwide this year.

The side of Republic of Korea will be responsible for developing the feasibility study of the project, and the construction work is to kick off once the Ministry of Energy gives permission. In 2020, a joint waste processing factory is planned to be established with a soft loan from the Government of Poland at the dump, during which the solar power station will serve as great support.

In afternoon trading in New York, copper for delivery in March continued to climb, hitting $2.7620 a pound ($6,070 a tonne), a 20-week high and up 5.2% over four straight sessions of gains.

China consumes half the world’s copper, and trade data released on Sunday showed the country’s imports of unwrought copper increased to the highest since September 2018. Shipment totalled 483,000 tonnes in November, nearly 6% higher than the same month last year.

For the first 11 months of 2019, imports of unwrought copper are still down 8.5% from a year earlier at 4.45 million tonnes. Last year China imported a record 5.3m tonnes of refined copper.

Copper stocks in warehouses in China have been declining since June and were at 245,500 tonnes at the end of last month, the lowest since at least June 2013, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

Imports of copper concentrate continued to rise sharply, up 27% from a year ago to a new record of 2.16m tonnes last month. November cargoes boosted year-to-date volumes to 20.1 million tonnes, a gain of just over 10% compared to the first 11 months of 2018. Concentrate imports are already above the record set in 2018 of 19.7m tonnes.

China put in place a complete ban on certain types of scrap copper imports at the start of 2019 on top of a 25% tariff on imports from the United States, one of its main suppliers, instituted in August.

Smelter expansions have increased demand and competition for copper ore in China, with spot treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) — paid to smelters to process copper concentrate into refined metal — falling sharply this year as a result.

“The new company will separate [oil and gas] transportation, production and sales, and open [transportation] to third-party entities, which will benefit market competition,” Xinhua News Agency reported, citing an unidentified official.

It will merge the networks operated by China’s three state-owned giants – China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Sinopec and CNOOC – under a single operator.

As of end-2018, CNPC owned 63 percent of China’s mainstream oil and gas pipelines, while Sinopec and CNOOC controlled 31 percent and six percent, respectively.

The company will be responsible for building and interconnecting oil and gas trunk pipelines, gas storage and peak shaving facilities, transporting crude oil, oil product and natural gas through the pipelines, as well as disclosing pipeline and storage capacity availability to third parties, and enabling them to apply for access.

According to Xinhua, the new entity is expected be overseen by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which will have a 40 percent share in the company. CNPC, Sinopec, and CNOOC will share the remaining ownership.

The new energy company, the formation of which has been under consideration since at least 2014, is part of President Xi Jinping’s drive to streamline industrial capacity among state-owned enterprises. It comes as part of China’s plans to double its pipeline infrastructure to over 240,000km by 2025.

Last week, Moscow and Beijing officially launched a mega pipeline called Power of Siberia (or the eastern route) to deliver Russian gas to China. It will then link up with China’s own network to deliver gas as far as the eastern seaboard and help satisfy the nation’s vast and growing energy needs. China is the world’s largest importer of oil and second-biggest buyer of natural gas.

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In recent years, meat export to Hong Kong, Iran and Vietnam have been growing. Some 80 percent of the total revenue from meat exports accounts for horse meat and supply of mutton, goat meat and beef showed significant increase.

Mongolia earned approximately MNT400 billion (about USD160 million) from meat export 2018.

Mongolians consume around 10-12 million head of livestock or 300-400 tons of meat per year; thus, the country is potential to put 9 million head of livestock into economic circulation and export over 180 thousand tons of meat, apart from the supply of entire domestic meat needs.

Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar is one of the most air-polluted cities of the world; half of the population live in the city’s ger districts, with no running water, central heating or sewage systems. Ger residents use stoves and have traditionally burned raw coal and other flammable materials to cook and keep warm during the region’s six-month-long winter, a practice believed to be responsible for an estimated 80 per cent of the air pollution in the capital city.

The Mongolian government has been striving to improve air quality in Ulaanbaatar by taking various measures, including the banning of burning low-grade coal for domestic use.

The project ‘Developing internationally-recognized vocational education and training for welders’ will be co-implemented by the Mongolian Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Hasu megawatt LLC, Schachtbau Nordhausen GmbH, and German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH under the develoPPP.de program set up by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development to support public-private partnerships.

In his remarks at the launching ceremony of the project, State Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection G.Unurbayar thanked Germany for its contribution to the development of Mongolia’s vocational education and training industry and underlined the project will open up opportunities to improve the quality and accreditation and certification systems of welding education and training and meet the high demand for skilled welders in the labor market.

Under the project, welders will be able to receive ISO 9606 certificates, welding training facilities of the German-Mongolian Vocational Training Center of Hasu Megawatt and technological school of the Erdenet enterprise will be refurbished, and an international standard assessment system will be jointly developed by Mongolian Material Science and Welding Society, Assessment, information, and methodology center for Vocational Education and Training, and the German Welding Society.