Aspire and ETT work together to add value to Mongolian met coal

Aspire Mining Ltd has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC (ETT), a Mongolian Government controlled entity that owns the Tavan Tolgoi coal mine, to cooperate on further technical and commercial assessments of blending Aspire’s Ovoot metallurgical coal with various coals from the Tavan Tolgoi deposit.

In 2014, Aspire conducted a number of blending tests with various coals, including non-coking coal from the Tavan Tolgoi mine that demonstrated the capacity to blend Ovoot coking coal and upgrade the coking ability of other coals. It is expected that, over the current life of mine plans, there are very significant quantities of non-coking coal to be produced at Tavan Tolgoi without a current viable market to sell into. The test work showed that blending relatively low proportions of Ovoot metallurgical coal (as low as 25% in the blend) resulted in a blended primary coking coal product under the Chinese system.

Under the MoU, Aspire and ETT have agreed to share data and samples for further evaluation, as well as establish a technical and commercial working group to prepare a feasibility study into the blending of Ovoot coking coal, Tavan Tolgoi non-coking coals and potentially other suitable Mongolia coals in a coal blending facility with a capacity of 8 –10 million tpy. In the event that the feasibility study is positive to jointly enter into commercial negotiations to establish a blending joint venture and to work together to attract necessary funding.

Aspire’s Managing Director, David Paull, welcomed this cooperation with ETT to add material value to Mongolian coking coal. He said: “Tavan Tolgoi is by far the largest coking {metallurgical] coal deposit in Mongolia with Ovoot being the second largest by reserves and it appears that there are numerous technical and commercial synergies in working together to improve the value of exported Mongolian coking coals”.

Edited from press release by Harleigh Hobbs

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/23062016/aspire-and-ett-work-together-to-add-value-to-mongolian-coking-coal-1016/