The establishment of a copper smelting plant in Mongolia was officially announced by decree in August of last year. This project, discussed for five decades, is under the leadership of Byambatsogt Sandag, the Minister of Mongolia and the head of government affairs.
Currently, a working group has been formed with the task of developing a feasibility study, selecting a plant, and establishing connections with leading global organizations in this field. As reported by MiddleAsianNews, work on the project is actively ongoing.
As part of the first selection stage, invitations were sent to 55 companies from more than 20 countries through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign embassies, resulting in proposals from 13 organizations from 7 countries. Four of them were found to be the most suitable and were selected for further consideration.
In addition, at the cabinet meeting, the government was tasked with selecting one of these four companies.
Currently, the following four companies are under consideration:
Non-ferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd (China)
Jiangxi Copper (China)
Shenzhen LITU New Energy Technology Co., Ltd (China)
Glencore International AG (Switzerland)
In the first quarter of this year, the government of Mongolia will decide which of the companies will be responsible for managing the copper smelting plant and processing the ore concentrate.
“We will adhere to the policy of selecting the most experienced, technologically advanced, and strategically important investors among them. The selection process must be transparent, open, and fair. With the establishment of the copper processing plant, it will be possible to fully process the copper mined by the state-owned company 'Erdenet' and produce 120,000 tons of pure copper per year. It is expected that around $700 million will be invested in this project over the next two years,” noted Byambatsogt.
