USD 200 million wasted on Mongolian rail project? www.news.mn
It has emerged that the Mongolian Government spent a total of 200 USD million on a new railway project which cancelled in 2016. J.Bat-Erdene, Minister of Road and Transport Development has been drawing attention to the railway that was never built.
In 2012 he was responsible for leading the working group for implementing the project. The agreement for constructing railway connecting Mongolia's strategically important Tavan Tolgoi, which contains an estimated 6.4 billion tonnes of coking coal and the Gashuun Sukhait border crossing with China, was signed by Energy Resources LLC. The rail project was seen as essential for speeding up coal transport and was expected to have been completed by 2016. However, the company’s investment to the project was stopped by the Mongolian Government at the time.
It will be recalled that last autumn gigantic queues of coal trucks taking Tavan Tolgoi coal to China formed on the road to the Gashuun Sukhait border crossing. At times the queues exceeded 100 km! Clearly, an alternative mode of delivery has to be found.
Currently, there are two options for the implementing the rail project: either the coal transportation companies unite to cover the costs or China, which buys the Tavan Tolgoi coal invests.
Published Date:2018-03-28