Mongolia
Mongolia's Chinese fuel target runs through the miners already burning it
The industry ministry has set a target of covering 30% of Mongolia's domestic fuel consumption from China and named the channel: about 30 Chinese-invested mining companies that already burn some 1.2 million tons of diesel a year. August deliveries in the ministry's count total 11,000 tons.
Mongolia's mid-year budget spends the money its provinces never did
The government has asked parliament to raise this year's spending ceiling by ₮998 billion ($277 million), all of it unspent balances sitting in provincial accounts, and says it has saved ₮1.4 trillion elsewhere to pay wages, pensions and energy relief. The deficit it amends had already doubled by July.
An oil camp protest in Mongolia ends with an apology recorded by Beijing
A senior Mongolian official apologised to China's charge d'affaires after protesters raided the camp of a Chinese-invested oil explorer, the South China Morning Post reported, citing the Chinese embassy in Ulaanbaatar.
Mongolia puts soldiers and tax holidays on an unfinished refinery
The cabinet in Ulaanbaatar has assigned Internal Troops to guard the refinery under construction at Altanshiree and freed the project from land fees for 10 years and property tax for 5. Until the plant runs, Mongolia's fuel security is a daily wagon count from Russia. Wednesday's count was 76.
Mongolia's fuel price outran the council that sets it
AI-92 petrol rose 200 tugriks a litre on Saturday, the weekend Ulaanbaatar’s rationing lapsed, while the Price Council that approves regulated prices has still not met. The crisis is changing shape: supply is recovering, and the cost is settling where it always ends, at the pump.
The queue ended, and the money ran out
Mongolia’s fuel rationing lapsed on schedule, and on the first working day without it the industry ministry’s briefing produced a different shortage: importers lack the cash to order the next consignments, and a price rise of about 200 togrog is, in the ministry’s words, unavoidable. The AI-92 cap stays.
The summit Mongolia paid to host opens at prime minister level
UNCCD COP17 opened in Ulaanbaatar on Monday morning with the prime minister under the flag and the foreign minister as president designate, and with the gap CAW flagged last week intact: no visiting head of state had been reported at the venue by midday.
Half of Ulaanbaatar’s cars come off the road the day the fuel cap lapses
From 15 August to 12 September, city wide and with no zoning, cars may enter Ulaanbaatar traffic only on alternating days by plate parity, between 07:00 and 21:00. The window covers the desertification conference, the start of the school year, and the morning the petrol rationing expires. Nobody has published how many days of fuel the country holds.
Mongolia's ask at the summit it is paying to host is Gobi water
The national committee for COP17 met for the nineteenth time in Ulaanbaatar on Thursday morning, four days before the desertification conference opens. Mongolia has put 250 billion tugrik of state money into hosting it, about $70 million at the rate of 5 August. What it wants out of the fortnight is financing to extend water supply in the Gobi.
Mongolia raises rates half a point, and the pumps come off rations on Saturday
The Bank of Mongolia’s monetary policy committee met out of turn on Wednesday and lifted the policy rate to 12.5%, with the reserve requirement for banks going up by the same half point. Hours later the fuel emergency headquarters said the purchase cap and the odd-even plate rule at the pumps end on 15 August. By the end of the working day the bank’s own site still showed the old rate.
The arithmetic of gratitude
On 15 August Ulaanbaatar's drivers stop queuing by their plate numbers and start driving by them. Peter Lidovsky on a city that has scheduled its relief and its restriction for the same morning.
Inflation reaches 13% in the country that counts petrol by the litre
Mongolia's July consumer prices rose 13.0% year on year, and the central bank called its monetary policy committee into an extraordinary session for Wednesday afternoon. The fuel ledger, meanwhile, is declared full for August, on Ulaanbaatar's arithmetic alone.
Mongolia's ministry publishes the Moscow promise, and Russia says nothing
The claim that Russia will send Mongolia an extra 25,000 tonnes of petrol this month moved on Tuesday from a minister's social account to his ministry's own website. No Russian institution has confirmed it.
Russia agrees to send Mongolia 25,000 more tonnes of petrol
Industry and mineral resources minister Damdinnyam Gongor met Russian energy ministry leadership and executives of Rosneft and Gazprom Neft in Moscow on Monday, and came away with a promise of 25,000 additional tonnes of AI-92 and 5,000 tonnes of jet fuel by 31 August. By his account, that ends the case for rationing.
Nine trips in a year: Mongolia’s fuel envoy starts in Moscow
The minister running Mongolia’s fuel crisis named his route on Sunday: Moscow first, then Kazakhstan, then Beijing. The itinerary carries its own message: whatever China agrees to supply, the system still runs through Russia.
Mongolia asks PetroChina for 12,000 tonnes a month
China agreed 6,000 tonnes of petrol for August. The prime minister wants that doubled and made standing, and he wants it cheaper.
Two in five people in Mongolia's fuel queue are counted twice
Mongolia's tax office says 40% of fuel customers are people who join one station's line and then another's. The ministry running the rationing is looking at doubling the purchase cap, possibly from Saturday.
Mongolia will buy fuel wherever it can find it
The industry minister says supply now outranks price in Mongolia’s fuel purchases. The zeroed customs duties have an end date, 1 February 2027, and the cabinet has cancelled its conferences and forums to pay for winter.
A queue timed to end when the guests arrive
Ulaanbaatar rations petrol by number plate until 15 August. The UN’s desertification summit opens there on the 17th. The gap between those two dates is the most carefully planned thing in Mongolia this month.
Mongolia zeroes its fuel taxes at the border
With rationing in force in Ulaanbaatar and 11 days to COP17, the cabinet has cancelled the excise on petrol and diesel and cut customs duties on every petroleum product to zero, giving up a revenue line to lower the cost of every imported litre.