Oyu Tolgoi is located 80 km from the Chinese border and, by the most direct route, within 300 km of the Chinese railway system. The Trans-Mongolian Railway is located approximately 450 km to the east. The region is serviced by a network of informal tracks that link Soum and Aimag centres. Cross border transport near Oyu Tolgoi is limited to periodic border openings at Gashuun Sukhait, the nearest crossing point 80 km south of Oyu Tolgoi, and at Hangi, approximately 295 km east-south east of Oyu Tolgoi.
Ivanhoe Mines has completed its exploration activities at this deposit and has completed the preliminary reserve estimates with the exploitation and mining plans currently underway. During the Project’s initial stage, there is a plan to build a concentrate plant with a capacity to process 20 million tonnes of ore per annum with a gradual increase to 40 million tonnes per year.
In order to implement such a large-scale project, infrastructure network will be of vital importance to this region. After studying several different infrastructure options for the mine, the company has selected and developed a project to build a road through the Gashuun Sukhait temporary border crossing, located in Khanbogd Soum of the South Gobi aimag and “B” section of the Small Gobi Strictly Protected Area, to reach the People’s Republic of China and then use Wuyan Chinese railway station, which is the closest one to Oyu Tolgoi, to connect to the international transportation network. This is the shortest route that calls for the shortest transportation distance within our country’s territory, which relatively minimizes the negative environmental impact and does not violate any rules and legislations pertaining to the limited zone of the SPA.
During the fall of 2003, ECO-TRADE has completed environmental studies on this corridor where there are plans for road construction, transportation, and power line construction.
