Mongolian metallurgical coal explorer and infrastructure company, Aspire Mining Limited (ASX: AKM, the Company or Aspire), has, through its rail subsidiary, Northern Railways LLC (Northern Railways), entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with MTGT LLC, the 100% owner of the Huren Chuulut Iron Ore Project.

Huren Chuulut is a large iron ore deposit located approximately 50 km to the north west of the Khuvsgul capital of Moron and 60 km north of the approved rail alignment for the Erdenet to Ovoot Railway. This Project needs rail to Erdenet to be able to connect to customers in China. Mongolia currently exports iron ore to Chinese customers along the Trans Mongolian Railway.

The MOU covers the sharing of development progress, mutual support in funding activities and the provisional allocation of 5 million tpy of freight capacity as soon as the rail line has been extended to the proposed connection point approximately two thirds along the total 549 km Erdenet to Ovoot Railway. It is expected that the Northern Rail Corridor will see significant demand for its freight capacity of at least 15 million tpy, growing to 30 million tpy in the long term.

Aspire’s Managing Director David Paull said that this MOU demonstrated that the Erdenet to Ovoot Railway will not only benefit Mongolia’s coking coal industry. Once completed, the Northern Rail Corridor, of which the Erdenet to Ovoot Railway is an important part, will see transport of a range of resources, agriculture and manufactured goods”.