Taylor Weidman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A dump truck travels through the open pit at the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit on Tsogtsetsii, Ömnögovi Province, Mongolia, on Friday, July 22, 2016.
Coal miners operating in Mongolia are betting on China‘s massive ‘One Belt, One Road’ program to improve access to existing markets in China and Russia and enter new ones as far afield as Eastern Europe.
Although Chinese demand for coking coal, or metallurgical coal – a key steelmaking ingredient – has recovered, infrastructure constraints in Mongolia, particularly a lack of rail capacity continues to cause ‘bottlenecks’ and delays in getting product to markets, said David Paull, managing director of ASX-listed Aspire Mining Ltd.
In the longer term, China’s efforts to re-invent the Silk Road trading route for the modern era, connecting Asia to the Middle East and Europe will shift the balance.
