MINING MINISTER MEETS S.KOREAN DELEGATION

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Minister of Mining D.Gankhuyag Thursday received a visiting delegation headed by Yang Young Myung, a vice president of the Korea Gas Corporation (CGC), in conjunction with implementing a project on exploiting the methane gas of coal-bed. Mr Gankhuyag said he is glad to meet with the CGC vice president in times of forming here a legal environment for utilization of methane gas of coal-bed, and briefly presented him the related law. He also noted that his Ministry received 12 requests from enterprises to cooperate in the non-traditional oil sphere. The adopted this July new wording of the oil law regulates matters related to exploring and exploiting both crude oil and non-traditional oil such as pyroschist, oil sands, gas sands, shale gas and methane gas of coal-bed, the Minister said. "This law has created friendly and competitive environment for investors to exploit these minerals," he added. Mongolia and South Korea both maintain the principles of developing the market economy based on private sector, Mr Gankhuyag went on, "related state administrative bodies intend to establish a contract on exploration, as a result of which the countries will sign a production-sharing contract and will conduct a reserve recognition exploration." In response, Mr Yang said their corporation is conducting a first part of the exploration together with the Mongolian “Erdenes Tavantolgoi” company, and that an experimental factory of methane gas processing is expected to launch in June of 2015. "Approximately two million tons of methane gas is needed to reduce air pollution in Ulaanbaatar," he added. The project on exploitation of methane gas of coal-bed is vital to creating a new source of energy and fuel, he said.