Source: Mining Weekly                    Date: 14 September, 2011

The Oyu Tolgoi mine will account for approximately one-third of Mongolia's economy by 2020, said Rio Tinto-Mongolias CEO Cameron McRae.

The world's largest untapped copper deposit will lift Mongolia's GDP by over USD 1,000 per person in the next 10 years; more than a 60 percent increase from the current GDP per capita.

Projections state that the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold project will produce more than 1.2 billion pounds of copper and 650,000 ounces of gold in the first ten years of the mine's production. By the seventh year, (when Ivanhoe believes will be the mine's peak of production) the mine will produce 1.7 billion pounds of copper and one million ounces of gold.

OT has already begun pre-stripping at the open-pit in preparation for the mine's development