The Bank of Mongolia said Wednesday that it has purchased 3.8 tons of gold so far this year, reporting a decrease of 453 kg compared to the same period last year.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Mongolia's forex reserves fell to 3.3 billion U.S. dollars in mid-April, down 1.2 billion dollars from the end of 2021, according to the central bank.

It purchased 20.9 tons of the precious metal last year and plans to buy at least 24 tons of gold in 2022 to increase the country's forex reserves.

Central banks typically hold gold as part of their foreign exchange reserves because of its long-term historical returns and high liquidity.

Elixir Energy Ltd (ASX:EXR) is working hard on the coal bed methane (CBM) exploration/appraisal program underway across its 100%-owned Nomgon IX CBM production sharing contract.

The company recently finished drilling the Tim-2 appraisal well – a follow-on from the successful Tim-1S exploration well drilled earlier this year.

Tim-2 well drilled

Tim-2 was drilled to a total depth of 1,020 metres – the deepest well Elixir has drilled in Mongolia to date. It logged 3 metres of coal and 5 metres of silty coal.

Localised faulting is the reason for the decrease in coal thickness from Tim-1 and Elixir will now integrate the Tim-2 results with geological mapping, age-dating and potentially new seismic to better define this coal-bearing sub-basin.

Newly hired drilling contractor Ellecohr LLC has recently spudded its first well for Elixir, Yangir-4, an appraisal well in the previously identified coal-bearing Yangir sub-basin.

Bulag Suuj-1S to spud later this week

The Top Diamond Drilling LLC rig that drilled Tim-2 has now mobilised to a new potential sub-basin in the west of the PSC and will spud the Bulag Suuj-1 well imminently.

Extended pilot production testing planned for mid-year continues to progress, with tendering for the civil works well advanced and a contractor expected to be hired shortly.

The company’s 2022 2D seismic acquisition program is proceeding as planned, with 223 kilometres, of a total of 322 kilometres, acquired to date.

Two rigs now operating

Elixir managing director Neil Young said: “The arrival of the Mongolian spring has allowed our multiple well program for 2022 to really accelerate and it is good to see two rigs now operating.

“Our pilot program – our and the country’s first – which is due to spud in mid-year – is on track.”

A decision to increase the minimum wage to MNT 550 thousand in 2023 was made at the meeting of the Tripartite National Commission for Labor and Social Concession held yesterday.

Thus, the minimum wage increased by MNT 130,000 or 31 percent from MNT 420 thousand. The decision will take effect from January 1, 2023.

There are about 1.1 million employees nationwide and 8 percent of them or about 80 thousand people earn the minimum wage.

Ever since I started my brand in 2002, I have been coming home to Mongolia to visit and spend time with the nomads who take care of the goats that give us cashmere yarns. Much has changed over the years, but one thing has remained the same, something that has been the same for centuries, is our nomads’ lifestyle and values. We worship and respect the land, sky, mountains and rivers through spoken words, Tibetan Buddhism, songs and dances.

My annual trips have now started to focus on nomadic communities who are working towards full sustainability and who are enrolled in programmes, such as the Sustainable Fibre Alliance (SFA), which have a long-term strategy of establishing full sustainability in the cashmere industry. Currently, the sustainability situation in Mongolia is not too bad, but it could deteriorate if we don’t act on it. It is important for me to support it, stay up to date with the challenges it faces and share our nomads’ inspiring stories.

On this trip, the temperature was -6C by day and -16C at night when I arrived in Ulaanbaatar, but the sky was clear blue, the air crisp and uplifting. We headed with my photographer Davaanyam, and videographer Khurlee, to Western Mongolia in a Jeep, armed with a gas cooker, enough coffee and snacks. Due to Covid, we heard rumours that most petrol stations might be shut in the remote areas, so we also brought extra petrol. Our plan was to travel from the capital to the far western areas of Mongolia, travelling 1,500km along the southern route and making our way back along the northern route, meeting nomadic communities on the way, experiencing the beauty of our country, travelling a total of 3,000km in seven days.

In Mongolia, you can visit any nomadic family on the road; their welcome and hospitality are legendary. The concept within the nomadic community is that humans face nature, so humans are allies. In nomadic culture, and not just among Mongolian nomads, people are very hospitable and spending time with them becomes an organic process.

This was the first time that I interviewed nomads on camera and took professional photographs of them. I asked them what earth and land means to them; what the most difficult thing and the most beautiful thing about being a nomad was; and what they felt was precious. Their answers ranged from family to land, to mountains and personal values.

We also asked them if they would like to ask something of our audience in the UK and worldwide in reverse, because I’m passionate about connecting people between the two ends of the cashmere production chain; the start being the nomads who are the most important part as they take care of these goats and the end being people who use cashmere products. We really want to connect them on a human level.

Depending on the season, nomads generally wake with the sun, which in the summer can be around 4am. The women usually wake first, light the fire, and warm up the ger so that it’s warm when the kids wake up. You can imagine in -30C it gets very cold. (The little girl, Nominsuvd, we were staying with was sitting in a T-shirt while we were there in cashmere jumpers and jackets – they are very tough.)

A ger, meaning ‘home’ in Mongolian, is a yurt and is made from wooden lattices forming a wall and thin wooden poles branching out toward the round crown at the top, that is suspended by two columns. This wooden base is covered in thick handmade wool-felt and cotton canvas and it’s all held together with hand-spun wool ropes. Nowadays many families have solar panels to charge their televisions and phones and so one sleeps in a totally EMF and electric pollution free home.

A ger is one of the most natural dwellings on earth, keeping in warmth in winter and maintaining coolness in the summer. It is portable, assembled or disassembled easily, and it’s beautiful in its simplicity of design and mobility. The Mongolian ger is registered by Unesco as an object of the world cultural heritage of mankind.

After a breakfast of milk tea with clarified butter and boortsog, Mongolian cookies (they are known as bawirsaq in the Middle East), the day starts by tending to the animals and milking the cows; depending on how many animals they have, it could take two hours in the morning. Then they let the livestock go out to pasture.

After a day out in the pastures, nomadic families feast on their own produce. Their diet consists predominantly of meat and homemade dairy products and for the last 200 years or so there has also been rice and root vegetables. There isn’t lots of it in their diet, but it is available from the province or village centres. From the beef to the mutton, the quality is amazing. It’s not just organic, but wild-roaming, herb-fed and the taste is so different. Just simply cooked meat with a bone broth, boiled potatoes, carrots and onions is absolutely delicious.

While modern nomads are online and mainly stay in touch via Facebook, their evening entertainment remains more physical interactive: chess, archery, musical instruments, and a game called shagai, which involves the small astragali bones of a sheep or goat, representing their five prized animals, Tavan Khoshuu Mal: sheep, horses, camels, cows and goat. And, of course, sharing riddles and poems and singing – the nomadic oral culture is very strong, and they speak beautifully.

Bedtime tends to be quite early, around 8pm, as they rise with the sun, which is the healthiest way. In the west, there is a rising awareness about circadian rhythms as a trend, but in Mongolia it is the way of life.

Nomadic kids start helping the family at an early age. When they are just four or five years old they are already riding horses and can help out when rounding up the herd. Around 35% of the population, or 1 million Mongolians, are nomads and it’s quite usual in a nomadic family for it to be passed on. My father was a nomad when he was born, but then he moved to a city.

It is not easy to be a nomad. When there is a tough winter with strong snowstorms or a dry summer with little rain, it can be very challenging. As a result, young nomads are attracted more to cities, but in cities it is tough for them because they have no education or specific professions applicable to an urban environment and can fall into poverty. They need support from the country, various organisations, and the entire cashmere consuming using people in the world. It’s sad if young nomads start giving up on nomadic culture because Mongolia, as one of the last remaining nomadic cultures, will change as we know it.

Being a nomad should not remain in the traditional way that it has worked for centuries. There are ways to support, inspire and learn from the modern nomads of Mongolia. Education and entrepreneurship can be part of being a nomad and could help young nomads being proud of who they are, like many generations of strong and proud nomads before them. That can help preserve this amazing nomadic culture and values, that the world could benefit from learning.

One special evening on this trip, we were welcomed into the home of Lkhaisuren and Uyanga – a young nomad couple – in Khovd Province, where we stayed overnight in their ger.

Going to sleep looking at the stars through their ger’s roof, with the sound and delicious smell of softly burning wood in a fireplace and waking up to the sweeping view of the valley was the most amazing experience of this trip. For nomads, the valley is their living room, a land with no fences and blue skies. Now, who would not want to experience that, and let the future generations to experience that too? As told to Scarlett Conlon

By Oyuna Tserendorj

The Mongolian government on Wednesday decided to allow South Korean tourists to visit Mongolia without a visa for up to 90 days until the end of 2024 after the visa-free regime comes into force on June 1.

The decision is part of the government's efforts to revive the pandemic-hit tourism sector and vitalize the economy by attracting more foreign tourists, the government's press office said in a statement.

Mongolia received a total of around 577,300 foreign tourists in 2019, hitting an all-time high, according to the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Tourism. The Asian country aims to attract the same number of foreign tourists in 2022, the ministry said.

Currently, Mongolia's economy is largely dependent on export earnings from the mining sector. Developing the tourism sector is seen as the most reachable solution to diversify the country's mining-dependent economy.

It is estimated that at least 577,000 South Korean tourists will visit Mongolia in the next three years thanks to the visa-free regime.

It is easy to feel that companies in the travel and tourism sector have inflated claims about their ‘green’ credentials in order to capitalise and profit. We’re a small, specialist tour operator without stakeholders or investors and we’re limited by our resources – both time and economic. However, we try really hard to make good decisions and although we cannot hope to change the world, do not get everything right or know all the answers, as a tour company, we have the chance to educate and influence the behaviour of our team and to inspire our guests and one way we are doing this is focusing on how we can help to eliminate single-use plastics in Mongolia.

As part of our (Mini) Plastic Free Mongolia Challenge, we highlight five ways in which our guests can help us to eliminate single-use plastics in Mongolia. One of those steps focuses on the use of plastic bottles.

In Mongolia, due to its challenging infrastructure, a majority of families do not have access to drinking water from a tap. Instead, there is a countrywide network of water supply stations where families come to collect their water. Here at EL we have never bulked purchased disposable plastic water bottles for our guests on our Mongolia tours. Instead, we have always provided two 20 litre water containers in each of our tour vehicles which we then refill taking fresh drinking water from these water supply stations. For added security, we provide a Steripen Adventurer or Lifesaver water filter which our guests use to neutralise their water.

We now also have a working partnership with Water-To-Go from whom our guests can purchase filtered water bottles. The filter in their 75 cl bottles is the equivalent of 400 single-use plastic bottles. Water-To-Go is a 3-in-1 filtration system that eliminates well in excess of 99.9% of microbiological contaminants including viruses and bacteria from any non-salt water source. Furthermore, the filter eliminates harmful contaminants from the water but allows the beneficial minerals such as sodium and magnesium to pass through leaving the healthiest water possible. Water-to-Go filters have also been independently tested against internationally recognised standards by industry specialists including The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (UK) and BCS Laboratories (USA).

EL guests that purchase a Water-To-Go bottle also receive an exclusive 15% discount. From each purchase using the discount code, an additional 15% is donated to buy Plan Vivo Foundation carbon certificates which are used to support the Plan Vivo Mongolian Nomad Project – working in partnership with the Mongolian Society of Range Management – https://www.planvivo.org/pastures-conservation-climate...

What We Need To Work On

In the EL office, we use 1-2 20L water dispensers a week. These are recyclable dispensers purchased from a local family-run shop next to the office and the dispenser is returned and reused. But, we do purchase cold drinks for our guests when on the road (oh the joy of finding a Coke in a working fridge in a small town in the Gobi Desert in the middle of summer), our guests and team purchase drinks for themselves when on tour and we do purchase drinks for the office which we keep in the fridge for our team for when they return to the office. These drinks are a mix of cans and plastic bottles.

Also, although the need to bring a reusable water bottle and our partnership working with Water To Go is highlighted throughout our Pre Departure Guidelines and Packing List, not all of our guests manage this and do purchase bottles of water.

A major issue in Ulaanbaatar – Mongolia’s capital city – remains that sorting or recycling are undertaken by very few companies and there are very few regular collections. Outside of Ulaanbaatar, the sorting and recycling of waste is even more limited (although local projects are focusing on waste reduction and management such as Ecosoum in Bulgan Aimag). However, in Ulaanbaatar, there is an emergence of organisations within the private sector and we are in the process of establishing a recycling system within our UB office with separate bins for paper, plastic, and cans which we can then transfer to recycling bins which have been placed close to our office. For plastic bottles and drinks cans bought when on tour by our guests and EL team members, we will try and set up a system whereby they are crushed, placed in a sack, and brought back to the recycling bins close to the EL office.

‘The production of plastics totalled around 368 million metric tons worldwide. The incredible versatility of this group of materials accounts for the continued growth in production year after year. In tandem with that growth, the market value of plastics also continues to grow.’

We’re a small company but with small steps, we are working on making our own small corner of the travel industry a better place and managing our usage of plastic bottles, and working with Water To Go form part of those small steps. Transparency is as important as action and we will publish each year our progress. For now, we invite you to be part of this bigger travel philosophy and purchase a Water To Go bottle.

Water-To-Go EL Discount Code (link)

Your Closest Water-To-Go Distributor (link)

For more on our Responsible Tourism philosophy – https://www.eternal-landscapes.co.uk/responsible-tourism.../

At its regular meeting on May 4, the Cabinet heard a report on the progress of railway construction works.

As of today, the construction of the Tavantolgoi-Zuunbayan railroad is running at 88.4 percent. The railroad is planned to be put into operation in October this year, reported the Ministry of Road and Transport Development.

As for the railroad being laid en route Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait, its construction is running at 76.4 percent. The railroad is planned to be commissioned in July this year.

Furthermore, corresponding officials are holding talks with the National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC on the construction of railroad en route Gashuunsukhait-Gantsmod, informed the Prime Minister’s Spokesperson Ch.Bolortuya. The talks aim to comprehensively resolve certain issues related to freight transportation and coal exports.

China’s metallurgical coal supply is expected to remain limited in the second quarter of 2022, as coking sector’s inventories deplete and Mongolian coal suppliers face logistical hurdles, industry sources said April 13. Industry analysts see relatively lower seaborne met coal shipments reaching China in Q2 than Q1 due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Meanwhile, some Mongolian coal shipments got stuck at Northwest Inner Mongolian land ports, as authorities flagged fluorine content in coal not in compliance with standards, resulting in several containers accumulating at the land ports of Erlian and Ganqimaodu.

This has hindered Mongolian coal trade into China.

As a result, Ganqimaodu’s efforts to step up daily coal haulage into China and raise the number of trucks to 300 remain a distinct possibility for now, according to investment bank Founder CIFCO Futures.

Also, China has adopted strict measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, a development that would keep operations at the Ceke land port closed. In the near term, daily Mongolian coal haul to China is expected to remain steady at around 200 trucks.

At one point in 2020, the number of trucks hauling Mongolian coal into China reached more than 2000.

Mongolia aims to ship 36.7 million mt of met coal to China in 2022. That will take 2022 volumes 161% higher from the last year level.

China is prioritizing thermal coal demand, leading to capping of domestic met coal output growth in January-February, while limited Mongolian coal haul has squeezed met coal supplies further.

More met coal supplies from Mongolia and Russia are only expected by the third or fourth quarter of this year.

While met coal stocks at coking producers were down, stocks at key Chinese ports were also at lower levels. As of April 8, met coal stocks at six Chinese ports were at 2.02 million mt.

On May 2, Speaker of the State Great Khural G.Zandanshatar received IMF representatives led by Ms. Angana Banerji.

At the outset, the Speaker expressed his gratitude to the IMF for its support provided to Mongolia during the difficult times of the pandemic. The Speaker noted that three factors: the COVID-19 pandemic, the international situation, and border closures have negatively affected Mongolia's economy and balance of payments, and put strong pressure on foreign exchange reserves, while emphasizing the importance of active cooperation in strengthening the balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves.

Last Friday, the State Great Khural passed 10 laws in addition to the amendments of the 2022 Budget Law of Mongolia, the 2022 Budget Law of the Social Insurance Fund, and the 2022 Budget Law of the Future Heritage Fund. The passing of these laws not only amended the state budget, but also enacted legislation to shift all levels of public institutions and state-owned companies to cost-saving measures and to begin structural reforms of state-owned enterprises.

Ms. Angana Banerji said, “The 'Vision 2050', Mongolia's long-term development policy, was projected to lead to economic growth, but new risks emerged due to external and internal factors. In order for Mongolia to protect itself from future risks, it is important for public institutions to focus on cost-saving and targeting child allowance and welfare to the target groups”.

“IMF is supportive of commercial banks’ IPOs. However, it should be postponed considering the adverse effects of the pandemic and the international crisis”, she added.

As they prepare for the next round of global climate talks in November, officials from rich countries are trying to pull together a series of multibillion-dollar packages to help poor countries phase out coal.

But negotiations have been snarled by national politics and Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has made the dirtiest fossil fuel a lucrative commodity to mine and export, according to people familiar with the talks who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

The talks stem from a landmark $8.5 billion pledge by the UK, US and European Union before last year’s COP26 summit to support South Africa’s move away from fossil fuels. The deal has become a model for decarbonizing other nations including India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The hope is that agreements can be reached with those countries before COP27, the people said, and that details of the South Africa pact will be finalized by then.

Much of the focus is on Indonesia, which will this year host the Group of 20’s meetings and have significant influence over COP27. Getting a deal done could earn rich countries some goodwill in Egypt after they failed again last year to meet a decade-old target to deliver $100 billion a year in climate finance for poor nations. But developed countries are also adamant that money can only flow if recipient governments come up with detailed economy-wide plans to end the use of coal.

Three officials from donor countries that visited Indonesia this year raised concerns privately that President Joko Widodo’s cabinet remains split over the need to end the use of coal. That’s been compounded by the war, which has raised the demand for coal exports. The government hasn’t come up with a coherent plan to transition away from coal, an obstacle to any breakthroughs this year, they said, asking not to be named so as not to jeopardize the talks.

“There are about 20 different visions within the Indonesian government about what they’re actually talking about,” said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director of the international climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who closely monitors the discussions. “There are still factions within the Indonesian government that are wondering why should we not build more coal and why should we transition?”

Indonesian ministries contacted by Bloomberg didn’t immediately respond to queries sent ahead of a week-long public holiday. The government last October released a plan to get to net-zero emissions by 2060 which includes retiring all coal-fired power plants by 2055.

Indonesia’s finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has said one of the biggest challenges is convincing private owners of coal plants to switch them off. Speaking on the sidelines of the IMF spring meetings in Washington in April, she also said rising inflation and borrowing costs were making any deal tougher to reach.

“If you ask Indonesia to transition off this energy that will bankrupt my budget, bankrupt the PLN, it will not fly,’’ she said, referring to the state electricity utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara.

Still, progress has been made recently as officials engaged in difficult questions about the speed of Indonesia’s energy transition and discussions have become more granular, according to a U.S. Treasury official familiar with the matter. US officials met with ministers and PLN representatives in Washington last week.

phase out coal

Meanwhile talks between India and the U.S. and Germany — representing the EU — haven’t progressed significantly, according to people familiar with the discussions. Any commitment could end up being a bilateral arrangement rather than a multilateral one, two of the people said. A coal shortage that’s led to power cuts are a hurdle, one of the people said. The Indian government has also chafed at being “talked down to” by Western countries that have offered more studies than concrete solutions, another person said. India’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to questions.

As for the South Africa deal, major elements of the financial package are still being developed six months after the agreement was signed. Finer points about how the money will be spent have yet to be confirmed, including how much will go to heavily indebted utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., how communities will be compensated and how any loans will be structured.

Technical details are now being worked out to determine the contours and scale of financing, with one goal being that it enables the government to escape long-term pressure tied to Eskom’s debt, a U.S. Treasury official said. When the deal was announced last year, South Africa hadn’t designated a lead negotiator and Eskom’s participation was unclear, among the many steps needed to turn the declaration into a final plan, the official said.

The country has since appointed Daniel Mminele, a former South African central banker, to lead the talks. He said that “work is progressing well” and the focus over the next few weeks will be on “assessing the detail of the funding elements relative to South Africa’s needs and priorities.”

Though there is still a chance that a broad agreement in principle will be reached for Indonesia before the G-20 meeting in Bali in November, some activists and insiders are more optimistic about the prospects for a pact with Vietnam at this point. The country has a smaller coal industry and more potential for wind energy, one person said. Officials with Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade were unavailable for comment.

The European Commission confirmed it is exploring energy transition partnerships with Vietnam, India and Indonesia. “A first progress review will be conducted before the summer, in good time before COP27,” a spokesperson said.

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said work was underway on Indonesia and the South Africa talks were moving forward. “We’ve mobilized some funding to help deal with Eskom — bail out the Eskom problem of South Africa and be able to help them transition,” he said at the Global Electrification Forum hosted by the Edison Electric Institute on April 25. “In Indonesia, they don’t have an Eskom problem, but they do have sort of a break-the-status-quo” challenge, he said.

Negotiations are ongoing at high levels. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has met with finance ministers from South Africa and Indonesia, a sign of the seriousness of the effort, which might otherwise be the domain for energy and environmental ministers.

The outcome of the talks will have significant consequences for the success of COP27. Striking deals with larger developing countries could lead to similar arrangements to help smaller and more climate-vulnerable nations.

The South Africa plan “provides a good model to build on here,” said Brendan Guy, lead strategist with NRDC’s international climate program. “But the question really is, can similar packages be tailored for the unique needs of countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam and others to really help them accelerate the move past coal?”

(By Jess Shankleman, Jennifer A Dlouhy and Archana Chaudhary, with assistance from Antony Sguazzin, John Ainger, Yudith Ho, Eko Listiyorini, John Boudreau and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen)