UPDATE: Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia

Rio Tinto was the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games official supplier of the metals for the 4,700 gold, silver and bronze medals. The world’s 2nd-biggest mining group, Rio Tinto, posted $5.9 billion in net profits compared with $7.6bn a year earlier.

While the company expects development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia remains on schedule for first commercial production in the first half of 2013, Rio Tinto and its partners in Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi mine are running out of time to strike a power supply deal for the massive copper and gold project.

Oyu Tolgoi is located close to the Chinese border, and a paucity of power options near Oyu Tolgoi – which is located in the South Gobi desert – means Rio and its parties need to rely on importing power from China for the initial years of operation at least.

Electrical transmission cables have already been laid and tested, but the Rio Tinto subsidiary company that is developing Oyu Tolgoi – Turquoise Hill Resources – reported today that a deal with Chinese authorities had still not been reached, despite close to a year of talks.

Rio and its partners have been saying similar things for many months now, and the situation becomes more concerning as Oyu Tolgoi’s start date approaches.

Source: smh.com.au

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Posted by WoodlawnPost on Aug 15 2012. Filed under Base Metals, Mining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.