2ND Coaltrans Mongolia Conference Emphasises Infrastructure
For the past two days, the 2nd Coaltrans conference took place in the Chinggis Khan Hotel, with delegates arriving from far and wide to discuss Mongolia’s resources potential.
The clear emphasis throughout the conference was on how best to provide viable “development” and solid “sustainability” as well as clear infrastructure improvements.
Presentations such as “Developing a rail project” from Baasandorj Batzaya, CEO of “Mongolian Railway” and Steve Lewis-Workman. Senior Transport Economist at ADB, who spoke on “Creating financial partnerships to develop Mongolia’s infrastructure” all focused heavily on Mongolia’s desperate need to enhance infrastructure to improve productivity, something that hasn’t seen major investment for the last twenty years.
Executive Director of the Business Council of Mongolia, Jim Dwyer, stated, “Sustainability is vital to Mongolia’s economic future”.
A view that was shared by Paulius Kuncinas, Regional Editor of Oxford Business Group as he commented: “After the Elections we hope for the Government to put out a clear long term infrastructure development plan”. Kuncinas also highlighted the need to exploit the “huge investment potential for thermal energy” as well as claiming, “Nuclear Power from the Uranium sources could make Mongolia a major player in the Asian fuel market”.
On the effects of coal and mining projects, John Miragliotta, of Sustainability East Asia LLC, stressed the importance to “share long term projects to local communities”, this, he claimed, was an integral message of the conference. He spoke of his admiration of Peabody Energy’s presentation on Wednesday detailing the reclamation of their mines. Miragliotta mentioned how Peabody’s approach was “unique...highly credible” and that they are “walking the walk before they start talking the talk”.
Henry Hely-Hutchinson, Managing Director of Coaltrans Conferences LTD told The UB Post: “We’re very pleased with how it’s gone, we’ve been pleased with the number of attendees and very pleased with the number of countries attending, I think we’ve had 25 countries. I think the speaker papers have been really good this year. I think it’s obviously very interesting to have the senior coal miners here, people like Graeme Hancock, CEO of ETT and having him on the same panel as Dr. Battsengel, CEO of Mongolian Mining Corporation. There was a certain amount of positive interaction between each other which was very interesting. I also thought it was interesting and quite unusual that we covered some slightly different topics about how the coal sector may be able to develop its profitability so we had some good sessions on coal bed methane and underground coal gasification which are not classic things that people would expect. They present whole new revenue streams for the Mongolian coal industry. I would like to compare the Mongolian conference to the Mozambique one. Mozambique is also a relatively new coal market, which people haven’t recognized until recently and holds large reserves that are receiving increasing interest from coal buyers. This conference gives a large number of people the opportunity to meet more and more people within the coal community in one place so I think compared with our other conferences it’s done well. The Government officials who attended have been very constructive and supportive. We’re very honoured in particular to have Mr Erdenepurev, such is the demand for information of coal in Mongolia, we have invited him to speak at our World Coal Conference in Istanbul in October and I’m hoping very for him to come and participate in that conference.”
Next year’s Coaltrans Conference is set to be held in late June.
The clear emphasis throughout the conference was on how best to provide viable “development” and solid “sustainability” as well as clear infrastructure improvements.
Presentations such as “Developing a rail project” from Baasandorj Batzaya, CEO of “Mongolian Railway” and Steve Lewis-Workman. Senior Transport Economist at ADB, who spoke on “Creating financial partnerships to develop Mongolia’s infrastructure” all focused heavily on Mongolia’s desperate need to enhance infrastructure to improve productivity, something that hasn’t seen major investment for the last twenty years.
Executive Director of the Business Council of Mongolia, Jim Dwyer, stated, “Sustainability is vital to Mongolia’s economic future”.
A view that was shared by Paulius Kuncinas, Regional Editor of Oxford Business Group as he commented: “After the Elections we hope for the Government to put out a clear long term infrastructure development plan”. Kuncinas also highlighted the need to exploit the “huge investment potential for thermal energy” as well as claiming, “Nuclear Power from the Uranium sources could make Mongolia a major player in the Asian fuel market”.
On the effects of coal and mining projects, John Miragliotta, of Sustainability East Asia LLC, stressed the importance to “share long term projects to local communities”, this, he claimed, was an integral message of the conference. He spoke of his admiration of Peabody Energy’s presentation on Wednesday detailing the reclamation of their mines. Miragliotta mentioned how Peabody’s approach was “unique...highly credible” and that they are “walking the walk before they start talking the talk”.
Henry Hely-Hutchinson, Managing Director of Coaltrans Conferences LTD told The UB Post: “We’re very pleased with how it’s gone, we’ve been pleased with the number of attendees and very pleased with the number of countries attending, I think we’ve had 25 countries. I think the speaker papers have been really good this year. I think it’s obviously very interesting to have the senior coal miners here, people like Graeme Hancock, CEO of ETT and having him on the same panel as Dr. Battsengel, CEO of Mongolian Mining Corporation. There was a certain amount of positive interaction between each other which was very interesting. I also thought it was interesting and quite unusual that we covered some slightly different topics about how the coal sector may be able to develop its profitability so we had some good sessions on coal bed methane and underground coal gasification which are not classic things that people would expect. They present whole new revenue streams for the Mongolian coal industry. I would like to compare the Mongolian conference to the Mozambique one. Mozambique is also a relatively new coal market, which people haven’t recognized until recently and holds large reserves that are receiving increasing interest from coal buyers. This conference gives a large number of people the opportunity to meet more and more people within the coal community in one place so I think compared with our other conferences it’s done well. The Government officials who attended have been very constructive and supportive. We’re very honoured in particular to have Mr Erdenepurev, such is the demand for information of coal in Mongolia, we have invited him to speak at our World Coal Conference in Istanbul in October and I’m hoping very for him to come and participate in that conference.”
Next year’s Coaltrans Conference is set to be held in late June.
Comments
Post a Comment