Ettl Mongolia

Bloomberg reports Mongolia is likely to sell a stake in its Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi coal-mining company to the public next year, raising more than $3 billion.

The Tavan Tolgoi deposit – mined since the 60s – in the South Gobi desert is the world’s largest with a 6 billion tonne resource of high-quality coking coal used in steelmaking. Metallurgical coal has been trading at record levels of $330/tonne this year.

Tavan Tolgoi is the second largest mining investment in Mongolia behind the Oyu Tolgoi gold-copper mine being built by Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines.

Mongolian officials are vacillating between a dual and triple listing: the Hong Kong, London and Nasdaq are among groups that submitted proposals to help privatise the asset.

Bloomberg quotes one analysts as saying the IPO “has a lot of the ingredients that investors would ultimately find attractive. Although there is still lingering doubt over the sovereign risk there, the project is on the doorstep of China and the emerging market.”

MINING.com reported in July Shenhua, the leader of a joint Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, and US consortium awarded the western block of Tavan Tolgoi which on its own holds 1.2 billion tonnes, faces a rocky road ahead to bring the project to fruition.

MINING.com reported last week that Oyu Tolgoi is expected to contribute a third of the country’s GDP when it goes into full operation, will be mined until at least 2060 and increase the average earnings of Mongolians by 60%.

The Wall Street Journal (sub required) reports in Hong Kong, five Chinese companies—an investment firm, two big construction machinery makers, a shoe retailer and a Shanghai-based restaurant chain—started making sales pitches for $7.4 billion worth of stock offerings, set to be sold in the next two weeks.