chalco and sth gobi, page-3

As I read it, the dispute relates to the pre-mining agreements for Soumber and Zag Suuj, not the operation of Ovoort Tolgoi (nor anything directly to do with Chalco's proposed takeover of South Gobi).

Whether this squabble will affect the re-opening of Ovoort Tolgoi is unknown. South Gobi may think that this is a good time to have a frank exchange of views whilst they are idling Ovoort Tolgoi anyway.

Whether it affects Chalco's enthusiasm for South Gobi is not known either but presumably Ovoort Tolgoi is the main focus there (existing sales with a $20 cash cost per ton) and a 6 - 12 months delay in moving forward with the smaller Soumber and Zag Suuj may not be much of a concern.

You'd have to think that South Gobi wouldn't initiate such a public action if they felt it was going to jeopardise Chalco's $920 million offer. Equally, you'd think Chalco wouldn't have agreed to an August 3rd deadline for the offer if they were worried about this particular issue.

After the Tavan Tolgoi fiasco, this may be a wakeup call for the authorities to get their act together (because it's the Mongolian people who are missing out while major developments are stalled).
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Also re Aspire and South Gobi, below is an excerpt from a Feb 2012 interview with South Gobi's CEO Alex Molyneux ....

Interviewer: "You said that your 20% stake in Mongolia's Aspire Mining could become very valuable as Aspire could be producing up to 20mm MT of premium hard coking coal by 2020. Can we get your latest thoughts?"

Alex Molyneux: "We're very pleased with our investment in Aspire. They remain on track to becoming a truly world class producer. Since our investment, the Company has confirmed the very superior quality of its coal, identified a new, nearby, highly prospective exploration target and signed a comprehensive marketing, logistics and off-take agreement with Noble Group."

Sounds like I'm not the only one who thinks that AKM is worth a lot more than $84m.