China-Mongolia coal-to-natural gas cooperation project moves forward again

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Further Progress in China-Mongolia Coal-to-Natural Gas Cooperation Project Author/Source: Date: 11-16-2015 Clicks: 4 At the invitation of President **Zhu**, Mongolian President Chahiyagin Elbegdorj paid a state visit to China from November 9th to 11th. During his visit to China, Elbegdorj held talks with **the President** and the Premier of the State Council. The two sides reached an agreement on accelerating the alignment of China’s Silk Road Economic Belt initiative with Mongolia’s Grassland Road initiative, and agreed to complete the drafting of the plan for the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor as soon as possible. **He and Elbegdorj witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in areas such as economic technology, food safety, infrastructure construction, aviation, energy, and finance. China and Mongolia also signed a joint statement on deepening the development of their comprehensive strategic partnership. The statement stated that the two sides will continue to advance cooperation on major economic and trade projects, in line with the important consensus on advancing these efforts in a coordinated manner through mineral resource development, infrastructure construction, and financial cooperation. The two sides agreed to accelerate cooperation on projects such as Tawantolgoi (the world’s largest proven coal mine), Xibao’ao (a UHV project for power transmission to Tianjin), coal-to-gas conversion, railways extending southward, and the Egen River hydropower project. In 2013, during the visit of the Mongolian Prime Minister to China, China and Mongolia signed a memorandum on producing 15 billion cubic meters of gas per year. During the visit to Mongolia in 2014, the two sides signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the **Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China and the Ministry of Mining of Mongolia on Strengthening Cooperation in Coal Processing. China and Mongolia reached further consensus on the clean utilization of coal, in order to ensure smooth progress in the in-depth cooperation between their enterprises on related projects in this field. In July 2014, Erdenebulgan Oyun, Deputy Minister of Mining of Mongolia, said that the cooperation between China and Mongolia included the construction of two coal-to-gas plants, with 95% of the output to be transported to China via pipelines. He said the factory will begin operations in 2019. Meanwhile, Chuluunbat Ochirbat, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Mongolia, said in an exclusive interview that the two coal-to-gas projects have entered into cooperation with Sinopec. It is reported that to implement the coal-to-gas project, Mongolia has established a working group to get started. The working group has received 2–3 research teams from the Chinese side, and has essentially completed the experimental research on the mines, the research on water resources, as well as the preliminary feasibility study for the project.