Baganuur is the open-pit lignite mine 130 km east of the capital that feeds Ulaanbaatar’s power stations, and semi-coke, the solid residue of heating coal without air, is the base of the “refined fuel” the city has bought for its ger districts since the raw-coal ban of 2019. The plant puts the sovereign fund into fuel manufacturing for the first time. Created to hold the state’s mining stakes, the fund takes 2 thirds of a company whose product is sold to households the state subsidises.
The same meeting heard the deputy prime minister’s plan to lift foreign investment to $5.5 billion a year by 2028 and an item on the progress of the Russia-China gas pipeline across Mongolian territory, the news sites record; the pipeline item is listed as a progress report, and the pyrolysis plant is the meeting’s one decision with a tonnage and a date. No investment sum is printed for it.
The plant puts the sovereign fund into fuel manufacturing for the first time.
The 40 MW unit is the plant’s own power. The commissioning date, the first quarter of 2028, is the winter after next; the winter now beginning will be heated by the fuel the city already has and the coal it was meant to replace.