The signing was reported by ikon.mn on Saturday 12 September and by Montsame on Monday morning. At a joint press conference in Ulaanbaatar with Simon Trott, the Rio Tinto chief executive who visited Mongolia last week, Nyam-Osoryn Uchral said the agreement amending the shareholders' agreement had been signed and confirmed, 17 years after the original.
The numbers are the ones the government first announced on 30 June, when the two sides agreed to adjust the interest on the shareholder loans and, in Rio Tinto's words, to bring forward distributions to shareholders. Uchral's ledger then: management fees cut by $2.2 billion, worth $1.5 billion to Mongolia; loan interest cut by $6.2 billion, worth $2.5 billion; a review of the loan rate every 3 years instead of every 7. Together, $8.4 billion off the costs and close to $4 billion added to Mongolia's benefit over the mine's life.
Neither text yet carries a line for what Oyu Tolgoi will pay in 2027, and nobody in Ulaanbaatar has printed a per-year figure.
The date is the news. Trott's line at the press conference, as ikon.mn reported it, was that Rio Tinto would work with the shareholders to deliver a dividend in 2027. Oyu Tolgoi LLC, under executive director S. Munkhsukh, confirmed the documents were signed; the corporation of the Chinggis Khaan wealth fund gave Montsame the $8.4 billion and $4 billion figures.
Rio Tinto's own June release names no rate and no saving. It puts the mine at an average of about 500,000 tonnes of copper a year from 2028 to 2036, 17,000 employees, 97.8% of them Mongolian, and $6.1 billion paid in taxes, fees and other payments since 2010. A consultancy's figure for the new rate is in circulation, but it appears in no published document.
Two state mines, two clocks. The coal one has already been spent. Monday's second reading of the budget rewrite, 56 votes of 68, takes a ₮1.5 trillion dividend from Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, the state coal company, for the pension rise due from 1 November. The copper one is dated 2027, sized at about $4 billion over the life of the mine and, in Rio Tinto's word, brought forward.
The Speaker made the connection himself. Opening the regular autumn session at 10:01 on Tuesday with 87 members present, S. Byambatsogt cited the constitution's line on sharing the benefit of natural wealth fairly among present and future citizens, credited the government's negotiations with the first Oyu Tolgoi dividend in 17 years, and put coal exports at 100 million tonnes this year and 110 million next.
First on the session's list are the 2027 budget framework and the 2027 budget's first reading. The 2026 rewrite still needs its third reading, which Monday's vote sent to the standing committees. Neither text yet carries a line for what Oyu Tolgoi will pay in 2027, and nobody in Ulaanbaatar has printed a per-year figure. That is the gap.
In structure, the amendment turns a contract that paid the operator in fees and interest into one that pays the holder of 34% in dividends. The first cheque has a year on it. Its size is the number the 2027 budget will have to guess.