Copper Mine To Transform Mongolia
Mongolia has positioned itself to become a large copper exporter, after it on Tuesday signed an agreement with multinational mining companies to develop an enormous deposit near the Chinese border.
Oyu Tolgoi, the copper-gold deposit in the south Gobi desert, is expected to produce 450.000 tons of copper per year after it is built and expanded over nine years at a cost of 4 billion US dollar.
The mine will employ as many as 3,000 workers, with thousands more finding jobs along the supply chain, providing a significant boost to the economy of the resource-rich country, one of the poorest in Asia and hard hit by the global economic crisis.
Mongolia’s gross domestic product – 5,26 billion dollar in 2008, according to the World Bank – is expected to increase 34,3 percent over the life of the mine, according to a 2005 project plan.
Mongolia signed the investment agreement with Australia’s Rio Tinto and Canada’s Ivanhoe. According to the investment agreement, the Mongolian government will own 34 percent of Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia, which is the license holder of the Oyu Tolgoi project.
Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe will now move forward with the development phase of the mine, which is expected to be put into operation in 2014.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
