Mongolia is one of the mining world’s exciting new frontiers and Stewart Group is helping the trailblazing efforts of local and international companies through its analytical laboratory operated by Stewart Mongolia LLC. Since establishing in 2003, Stewart Mongolia has steadily increased the number of analytical services offered to the country’s mining industry and intends to continue growing as more exploration is carried out and new mines are developed. It currently stands as the only international independent laboratory in Mongolia to offer multi-element analysis by ICP-AES and full coal quality analysis.

A drilling program is under way at Hunnu Coal’s Tsant Uul Coking Coal Project in southern Mongolia which aims to generate an initial JORC-compliant resource.

Tsant Uul is 40km to the south of the giant Tavan Tolgoi coking coal field in Umnugobi province and initial test results demonstrate similarities to Tavan Tolgoi coal.

Hunnu says that the drilling will also enable additional coal test work to be carried out.

Entrée Gold has received a mining licence covering the Nomkhon Bohr coal discovery, which was outlined through exploration efforts in 2008-2009.

The new mining licence comprises about 14,030 hectares and covers the north-west corner of the former Togoot exploration licence.

The portion of the property included in the mining licence is mainly underlain by Permian sediments which are known to host rich coal deposits in this part of the Gobi Desert.

Entrée’s president and CEO Greg Crowe says, “We have worked closely with our Mongolian resource consultants and the Minerals Council over the last several months to meet the criteria for a mining licence over our Nomkhon Bohr coal discovery.

Energy Resources has granted Leighton Asia an Aus$700 million contract adjustment to ramp up production at the Ukhaa Khudag (UHG) Coal Mine in the South Gobi region.

In a deal worth Aus$940 million, Energy Resources contracted Leighton in April 2010 to ramp up the coking coal mine to annual production of 10 million tonnes of raw coal production by June 2011.

Hunnu Coal has started an exploration and drilling program at its 60%-owned Unst Khudag Coal Project and surrounding exploration licences in Dundgobi province.

Unst Khudag is being developed by Hunnu to deliver high quality, premium thermal coal to both domestic and Chinese offtake customers.

The project, which consists of two exploration licences covering more than 59,000 hectares and a mining licence covering about 1600 hectares, is strategically located 200km from an operational multi-party coal loading facility on a major rail line.

There is an approved mining plan and feasibility study for the mining of 98.7 million tonnes of coal with Hunnu targeting first production later this year.

Entrée Gold has filed a comprehensive NI 43-101 Technical Report (ETR10) which outlines the history and exploration of the Lookout Hill Project and discusses various scenarios related to future development of the Oyu Tolgoi mining complex and, more specifically, the Entrée-Ivanhoe Joint Venture Property.

ETR10 includes information from Ivanhoe Mines’ integrated development plan (IDP10) prepared for the Oyu Tolgoi project.

Entrée has supplemented the work in IDP10 with additional analysis specific to the company and its holdings in the Oyu Tolgoi project area. This additional work has been prepared to examine further aspects of the mineral reserve, metal price sensitivities, real options analysis, Heruga and additional production options.

Hunnu Coal has acquired a 60% interest in the Tsohio Coal Project which is about 40km south of the company’s Khuree-2 coal project in the Umnugobi Province of Mongolia.

Tsohio is between the giant Tavan Tolgoi coking coal field and South Gobi Energy Resources coal field, and is 60km north of Mongolian-Chinese border.

The granted exploration licence has an area of 38,600 hectares and the project is highly prospective for both coking and thermal coals.

Tsohio has had limited past exploration. Due diligence work by Hunnu Coal has discovered a coal seam outcrop that is about 3km in strike length.

This coal seam has also been intersected in a single trench with a thickness of about 5 metres. Based on this work the company has an exploration target for the project of 50 million to 75 million tonnes and is planning an aggressive exploration program.

Voyager Resources continues to progress its goal of creating a sustainable exploration and development business focused on gold resource opportunities in Mongolia.
The progress was led by the acquisitions of three separate gold projects in Mongolia, including the right to earn 80% of the high grade Daltiin Ovor Gold Project and the gold-rich epithermal and porphyry at the Tsagaan Chuluut Gold Project.
The company has this year completed the 100% acquisition of the Argalant Gold Project and has signed agreements to earn 80% of the Daltiin Ovor and Tsagaan Chuluut gold projects.

Entree Gold is set to begin first phase exploration of the Shivee West copper-gold-molybdenum prospect in southern Mongolia.
The company has budgeted about US$4 million for the work which will be undertaken during the northern hemisphere field season.
The program will include detailed geophysics and about 5000 metres of drilling to test deep geophysical targets and copper, molybdenum, gold soil geochemical targets within a belt of prospective Devonian rocks identified in earlier programs.
Areas of Shivee West are geologically similar to the Devonian-aged setting of the adjacent Entree-Ivanhoe Mines joint venture deposits, Hugo North Extension and Heruga, and Ivanhoe Mines’ nearby Oyu Tolgoi deposits.

THE Ulaan Ovoo and Chandgana Tal thermal coal projects of Red Hill Energy will form part of the diversified assets of Prophecy Resource Corp once a friendly merger between the two companies is finalized.
When formed the new company, called Prophecy Resource, will hold the Mongolian coal
assets as well as nickel, lithium, rare earth elements, copper-molybdenum and vanadium-titaniumiron
assets in North America. The merger excludes Red Hill’s noncoal assets.
The new company will boast NI 43-101 compliant measured and indicated resources of 232 million
pounds of nickel, 1 billion tonnes of coal and 116 million pounds of copper in addition to inferred
resources of 500 million tonnes of coal and 593 million pounds of copper.

An updated inferred mineral resource estimate for the Entrée Gold and Ivanhoe Mines’ Heruga deposit in southern Mongolia shows the joint venture property now contains 910 million tonnes grading 0.48% copper, 0.49 grams/tonne gold and 141 ppm molybdenum.
The estimate, which was received from joint venture partner and project operator Oyu Tolgoi LLC, has been incorporated into an independent NI 43-101 compliant technical report.
This estimate represents a 20% increase in tonnage and a 15% increase in contained copper equivalent pounds of copper at a 0.6% copper equivalent cut-off over the March 2008 resource estimate. Based on these new figures, the Heruga deposit could contain 9.5 billion pounds of copper and 14 million ounces of gold.

Leighton Asia has secured a US$870 million contract adjustment to increase production at the Ukhaa Khudag (UHG) coal mine in southern Mongolia.
Energy Resources LLC, which operates the mine in the South Gobi region, has requested Leighton Asia to expand the production capacity.
The contract adjustment will ramp up annual production rates from current levels to 10 million tonnes by June 2011.

HUNNU Coal has been granted an option to acquire an 80% interest in the Erdenes Thermal Coal Project in Dornogobi province.
Erdenes, which is 56km from an operational multi-party bulk coal loading facility on a major rail line, is the latest in a series of coal acquisitions by the Australian-based company, which operates in Mongolia through its subsidiary company Hunnu Resources LLC.
Hunnu has an exploration target of 40 million to 60 million tonnes for Erdenes based on existing exploration work.

On March 17, 2009, Mongolia signed a cooperation agreement with Russia, designed to ramp-up development of nuclear energy in both countries.
The agreement opens the door to potential smaller nuclear plants in Mongolia as well as joint venture exploration and development of uranium projects in Mongolia, Russia or other states.
It is estimated that Mongolia holds more than 220 million pounds of U3O8 in reserves.