AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolian coal explorer, Aspire Mining Limited has signed an agreement with the Mongolian government, owner of the world class Tavan Tolgoi Coal Mine to look into blending coal opportunities with Aspire's Ovoot mine, reports Proactive Investors.
The memo of understanding was signed with Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC (ETT), the Mongolian government entity that owns the giant Tavan Tolgoi mine, one of the world’s largest untapped coking and thermal coal deposits.
Aspire's Ovoot Coking Coal Project is also world class in size and quality, ranked as the second largest coking coal project by reserves in Mongolia.
In 2014, Aspire conducted a number of blending tests with various coals, including non-coking coal from the massive Tavan Tolgoi mine.
Of note, 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 Coking Coal (as low as 25% in the blend) resulted in a blended primary coking coal product under the Chinese system.
David Paull, managing director for Aspire, welcomed this positive development to work together with ETT to add material value to Mongolian coking coal.
"Tavan Tolgoi is by far the largest coking 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," he said.