Mongolia
Russia’s diesel to 4 buyers in Central Asia and Mongolia doubled in August to 370,000 tonnes, with Mongolia taking 215,000 and Kyrgyzstan’s intake rising from 4,400 to 72,000
Russian diesel exports to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia exceeded 370,000 tonnes in August, more than double July’s, traders told Reuters on Monday in figures Neftegaz.ru carried the same evening and Asia-Plus on Tuesday. Mongolia took about 215,000 tonnes against 124,000 in July, Kyrgyzstan more than 72,000 against 4,400, Tajikistan more than 56,000 against 16,000, and Kazakhstan, which imported none in July, about 28,000. Over January to August Russia sent 2.5 million tonnes of diesel to Central Asia and Afghanistan, against 2.6 million a year earlier.
Mongolia’s parliament opens with 75 members on its third attempt as the prime minister dares the Democrats to file for his dismissal
The State Great Khural’s plenary opened at 14:01 on Tuesday with 75 of its 126 members registered, 59.5%, after 2 attempts that stopped at 52 and 58, the parliament’s own account of the sitting says. Prime Minister N. Uchral presented the release of S. Amarsaikhan as justice and home affairs minister and the appointment of G. Temuulen in his place, 24 members put questions, Temuulen took the oath, and under the session rules the house voted on nothing. In the chamber Uchral told the Democratic Party to collect signatures and submit a letter for his dismissal if they disliked his work, ikon.mn reported at 18:30, and D. Amarbayasgalan, the former Speaker who stayed away on Monday and speaks for what he calls “our 30”, said he would meet the prime minister the same day.
Mongolia’s fuel headquarters counts 79 tank wagons of petrol, about 2 days of sales, as Russia’s Moscow refinery stops processing and Novak orders risk scenarios
At 08:00 on Monday the Ulaanbaatar railway held 900 tank wagons of oil products, 79 of them petrol, 730 diesel and 91 jet fuel, the industry ministry’s fuel headquarters said after its meeting. On the 60 tonnes a wagon a Mongolian outlet used for the same count last October, the petrol comes to about 4,700 tonnes, 2 days of the 74,780 tonnes the headquarters’ own book recorded for August, on CAW’s arithmetic. That evening Reuters reported from 3 industry sources that Gazprom Neft’s Moscow refinery had stopped processing crude altogether on 20 September after drones set fire to both of its primary units.
Mongolia’s parliament opens on its third attempt after 2 quorum failures as the prime minister presents G. Temuulen for justice minister
The plenary called for 14:00 on Tuesday in Ulaanbaatar opened in the State Palace, ikon.mn reported at 14:11, after failing for want of a quorum on Thursday and on Monday; Prime Minister N. Uchral was presenting the appointment of G. Temuulen as justice and home affairs minister as its first item. The house needs 64 of its 126 members to register; it reached 52 on Thursday and 58 on Monday, when 16 members of the governing Mongolian People’s Party, a former prime minister and a former Speaker among them, were on ikon.mn’s list of those who had not registered. In March the same absences idled the chamber for 2 weeks, and the prime minister resigned before it sat again.
Mongolia’s parliament fails to open again as 16 ruling-party members, a former prime minister and a former Speaker among them, stay away
Fifty-eight of 126 members had registered by 16:42 on Monday in Ulaanbaatar, 6 short of the 64 a sitting needs, and the plenary called for 14:00 had not begun, ikon.mn reported. Sixteen of the missing belong to the governing Mongolian People’s Party: the former prime minister L. Oyun-Erdene, the former Speaker D. Amarbayasgalan and S. Amarsaikhan, the dismissed justice minister whose removal the sitting was called to hear, are on the outlet’s list. In March, with the same 3 absent, the plenary stood idle for 2 weeks until the prime minister resigned.
A Rio Tinto mine outlives a government: Mongolia and the second deal
Mongolia’s parliament formally instructed the government to secure at least 53% of the economic benefit from the Rio Tinto-operated Oyu Tolgoi mine. Months later Rio Tinto and Ulaanbaatar agreed to cut financing and management costs and set 2027 as the target for the first dividends, and the public documents do not yet show the parliamentary requirement met in full. Madagascar, Bougainville and Juukan Gorge place the Mongolian case inside a wider pattern: Rio Tinto’s mines run for decades while the governments, contracts and communities around them change.
The World Bank offers Mongolia a non-binding 'Country Compact' for its mines as the stock exchange signs up London for dual listings
The World Bank has proposed drawing up a 'Country Compact' for Mongolia's mining and minerals sector, a document the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources describes as a declaration of goals, priorities, timelines and results, carrying no legally binding obligations, and neither a contract nor a memorandum, Montsame reported on Friday. A day earlier the Mongolian Stock Exchange and the Central Securities Depository announced a 'Mongolia Capital Market 2.0' roadmap with the London Stock Exchange Group covering trading, settlement and custody systems and dual listings for Mongolian companies, ikon.mn reported.
Oyu Tolgoi's revenue runs $1.9 billion ahead of plan in 8 months; the copper dividend is still dated 2027
Oyu Tolgoi LLC earned $5.5 billion in January to August against a plan of $3.6 billion, ikon.mn reported on Thursday from the company's quarterly report, with copper output at 276,000 tonnes against 251,700 planned and gold at 339,000 ounces against 286,000. Taxes, fees and other payments to the state stood at ₮834 billion as of the second quarter, about $232 million at the central bank's rate posted for Thursday.
Mongolia’s parliament fails to make a quorum for a new justice minister and its rewritten fiscal rule; the 2027 draft prints a 2% deficit
Fifty-two of 126 members registered for Thursday’s plenary, 41.3%, and the Speaker moved the sitting to Monday. The Democratic Party sent 1 of its 42 members; the governing party sent 44 of its 68. On the agenda were the replacement of the justice minister sacked on Wednesday and the amendment that takes 2 indicators out of the fiscal rule.
Mongolia's budget committees vote to strike the spending ceiling and the base balance from the fiscal rule's 9 indicators
A joint sitting of the State Great Khural's budget and economic standing committees on Wednesday backed, with 56.7% of members present, a bill that removes two of the nine indicators from the Budget Stability Law's framework statement, the consolidated budget's base expenditure ceiling and its base balance, and replaces them with a total expenditure growth rate and a capital expenditure amount, Montsame reported at 15:25. First deputy prime minister Zh. Enkhbayar presented it. The committees' conclusion goes to the plenary.
Russia's refiners keep their diesel at home to the end of October, Vedomosti and RBC report; the intergovernmental exemption that feeds Dushanbe stands
The Russian government has decided to extend the export ban on diesel for producers to the end of October 2026, Interfax reported at 08:10 on Wednesday, citing Vedomosti and RBC on the outcome of Alexander Novak's meeting of 14 September. The ban was due to lapse on 30 September. No resolution has been published; Interfax carried the decision as media reports of the government's plans.
Mongolia's prime minister removes his justice minister 2 days after the prisons chief accused him in public over his driver's relatives
Prime Minister Uchral relieved Justice and Interior Minister S. Amarsaikhan of his post on Wednesday, the government's press office said, because the branch responsible for the country's internal security 'has become unable to operate normally'. On Monday the head of the Court Decision Enforcement General Office, A. Namsamand, had told the media that the minister had his driver's wife and a younger sibling appointed as heads and threatened over other appointments.
Mongolia signs the Oyu Tolgoi amendments 17 years on: a first dividend dated 2027, as the parliament that spent the coal dividend reopens
Prime minister Uchral announced, with Rio Tinto's Simon Trott beside him, that changes to the 2009 shareholders' agreement had been signed and confirmed, ikon.mn reported on Saturday; the government counts $8.4 billion off the mine's costs and about $4 billion more for Mongolia over its life. The Speaker opened the autumn session on Tuesday by calling it the first dividend in 17 years. The pension rise in this year's budget was paid from coal.
Overchuk holds out a full free-trade zone for Mongolia after 3 years, on a schedule of dairy, chocolate, cars and metals
Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk told reporters in Ulaanbaatar on Monday that the EAEU’s temporary trade agreement with Mongolia, in force since 22 July, should become a permanent, full-format free-trade agreement once its 3-year term has run. The schedule that agreement carries zeroes or cuts duties on 367 tariff lines each way; the goods listed on Russia’s side at entry into force, in Interfax’s report from the Eurasian Economic Commission, were dairy, confectionery, tinned food, chocolate, drinks, cars, special machinery and metals.
Mongolia’s parliament closes its budget session one reading short, and reopens on Tuesday to finish the rewrite
The State Great Khural ended the extraordinary session it had called for the 2026 budget rewrite on Monday evening with the amendment passed at second reading and sent back to committee for a third. The regular autumn session opens on 15 September by law, and the rewrite goes first on its agenda, with the 2027 budget after it, ikon.mn reported.
Who sets the price of petrol: six machines between one Russian exchange and the pump
Central Asia and Mongolia buy most of their fuel from Russia and price it six different ways. A tour of the machinery, from Bishkek's dollar wall to Ashgabat's two price tags, and what each one does when the exchange in St Petersburg moves.
Russia keeps its pumps on Euro-2 to June 2027 while its export bans hold, Novak tells the government
Deputy prime minister Alexander Novak has reported the state of the fuel market to a government subcommission chaired by first deputy prime minister Denis Manturov, Kommersant reported on Thursday evening: exports of petrol, diesel and jet fuel are banned, the Tax Code has been amended to create the conditions for fuel imports, and filling stations may sell fuel of ecological classes K2, K3 and K4, Euro-2 to Euro-4, under a temporary permit. The permit rests on a government resolution reported on 31 August and runs from 1 September to 30 June 2027. The bans are the ones already on record, and the producers' diesel ban ends on 30 September.
A ₮3.5 billion line for a school tied to the family of Mongolia's prime minister surfaces in the budget rewrite, and the ministry has not published the list
A member of the State Great Khural says the government's amendment to the 2026 budget carries 3.5 billion tugrik ($970,000) for the Ikh Zasag King school, which prime minister Nyam-Osoryn Uchral himself calls the school connected to his family. The prime minister says the school asked for nothing, the finance minister says nothing was allocated to it, and the education ministry has yet to publish which schools share the 18 billion tugrik line the sum sits in.
China's fuel promise to Mongolia gets a number: 17,000 tonnes for September, and a 20-year frame around it
CNPC will ship Mongolia 10,000 tonnes of petrol, 4,000 tonnes of jet fuel and 3,000 tonnes of diesel this month, the industry ministry said on Thursday, 9 days after Montsame reported Xi Jinping's promise of fuel with no tonnage attached. The petrol covers about a sixth of the month's book; the diesel about 2%. The larger object in the readout is a memorandum the two sides now intend to sign: 20 years of crude, refinery feedstock and coal chemicals, with a price formula and a rail chain still to be written.
Mongolia's environment minister counts COP17 at ₮217 billion of budget, ₮38.6 billion of it classified, against $1.4 billion of pledges
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change had ₮217.1 billion approved for hosting the UN desertification conference in August, of which ₮38.6 billion was budgeted for procurement classified as a state secret, minister Sandag-Ochir Tsend said at a press conference on Wednesday, gogo.mn reported. Ikon.mn quoted the same minister putting the conference's investment opportunities and pledges at $1.4 billion, about ₮5 trillion.