Mongolia Mining Corp. is betting there’s enough demand from
China to support the construction of an $800 million railway that will double
export capacity to the nation that counts Mongolia as its biggest coal
supplier.
Expanding transportation links between the adjacent countries “will improve the
position of Mongolia as the leading coking coal supplier to China,” Battsengel
Gotov, chief executive officer of MMC, as the company is known, told reporters
in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator.
Mongolia, the world’s fastest growing economy, overtook Australia as China’s
biggest coking coal supplier last year, exporting 20 million metric tons of the
raw material used to make steel. MMC is building a 250 kilometer (155 mile)
rail to add 30 million tons of export capacity direct to China.
“There’s still room for everybody in Mongolia” to mine and sell commodities,
Gotov said from the company’s head office.