MINISTRY OF MINING RECEIVES FEASIBILITY STUDY OF MAJOR GASIFICATION PLANT

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Ministry of Mining received Thursday a preliminary feasibility study from China's Sinopec company on a project of building a brown-coal gasification plant to process 50-60 million tonnes of brown coal and produce 15 billion cube meters of synthetic gas a year. The project was developed in frames of the discussion during the Prime Minister’s visit to China in 2013, when he touched upon matters on processing brown coal, widely spread in Mongolia, and producing coal products. The estimated cost of the project is USD 30 million. The project will commence a coal processing in 2018. The executive team is planning to extract the brown coal from several coal beds in Dundgovi and Dornogovi aimags. Sinopek Limited, also known as China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, is the biggest state-owned oil company in China. To question "will be coal exported to China unprocessed or be used in production of value-added product?" the vice-minister of Mining O.Erdenebulgan replies that all works will be done in Mongolia, "this project is to be much greater than Oyu Tolgoi in terms of investments and production capacity". The domestic market will consume five percent of the annual 15 billiion tonnes gas, the rest will be exported, according to the project.