Mining license in Mongolia

by Hun

31 percent of Mongolian territory has been issued mining licenses

The Open Society Forum determined that licenses have been issued for a total territory of 49.4 million hectares, accounting for approximately 31 percent of Mongolia's total territory.

As of January 2, 2009, a total of 5,202 licenses were valid in the mining sector. The Open Society Forum reported information on the types of licenses, the territory size they cover, the license holders, and the soums and aimags where the licenses were issued. The number of valid permits for exploration and exploitation in Mongolia is 5,202. When registered by the number of soums, the number of licenses comes out to 6,212.

In comparison to the 4,644 valid licenses that covered the territories of 5,551 soums, the number of licenses increased by 558 in the last eight months. 1,901 licenses (21 percent) of the 5,202 are exploitation licenses, and the remaining 4,111 are exploration licenses. The number of exploitation licenses, which was 1,061, has since increased by 31 in just half a year.

The aimags with the highest number of issued licenses are Tuv, Dornogobi, Omnogobi, Selenge and Khentii. Aimags with the least number of licenses are Gobisumber and Orkhon. In Zavkhan, 35 exploration licenses have been issued for every one exploitation license, constituting the largest discrepancy between exploration and exploitation licenses.


In Ulaanbaatar, there is one exploration license for every 1.5 exploitation license. Ulaanbaatar is the only place where the number of exploitation licenses exceeds that of exploration licenses. There are 131 exploitation licenses issued for Ulaanbaatar, making the city fall behind Tov and Selenge aimags regarding exploitation licenses.

Furthermore, the majority (67.9 percent) of the exploitation licenses have been issued along with permits for the extraction of construction materials. When the size of licensed territories is compared to administrative units, it can be seen that Dornogobi and Gobi-Altai stand out. The majority of exploitation licenses issued in Tuv aimag (57.5 percent) are gold mining licenses. 21.4 percent are for mining of construction materials, and the remaining licenses are for mining fluor spar, basalt, wolfram, salt, mixed minerals, chalk, and tin.

The highest number of issued licenses in Selenge aimag is held by Boroo Gold, one of the four companies said to have formed stability contracts with the Mongolian Government. The ten licenses held by this company in Selenge aimag cover the territories of Bayangol and Mandal Soum. 458 (41 percent) of the 1,191 valid licenses are for gold mining. Furthermore, it can be seen from figure 1 that licenses for the extraction of construction materials, coal, and fluor spar, will follow.

by B.Bulgamaa