Source: The Mining Weekly                 Date: 15 June, 2011

The construction activity at Oyu Tolgoi will likely reach a peak in the third quarter of this year, Ivanhoe Mines said last week. Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto are investing an average of USD7 million a day at the moment, much of it in Mongolia, on purchases of goods and services to advance the project. The firms have set a total capital budget this year of USD2.3 billion for Oyu Tolgoi.

The concentrator is more than 32% complete, and the first line will be ready to start commissioning in the second quarter of 2012. The overall project is still ahead of schedule, and pre-stripping of the openpit mine will start in the third quarter of this year, with commercial production scheduled for the first half of 2013.

The company also said it has received approvals for and started work on a 95-km high-voltage power line from the Oyu Tolgoi site to the Mongolia-China border, where it will connect to a proposed supply line in China. “Discussions to secure electricity imports from China during Oyu Tolgoi's initial four years of commercial production are continuing between Chinese and Mongolian representatives,” Ivanhoe said.