This is the Gobi Desert in Southern Mongolia, one of the most isolated regions on earth. Somehow humans inhabit this desolate region: nomads with wind-chapped faces who hunker down in circular felt tents and raise herds of bony livestock. It is here, deep in the Gobi, that locals noticed earth of an incandescent blue. They named the area Oyu Tulgoi: Turquoise Hill. Oyu Tolgoi is poised to become one of the world’s biggest mines, with some $350 billion worth of copper and gold reserves.
For centuries, Mongolia loomed in the world’s imagination as a byword for land-locked isolation. It is a country the size of Western Europe with fewer than 3 million citizens scatterd across its lonely steppes. Fifteen times as many livestock animals – camels, horses, sheep, cows, goats and yaks – as people, roam the land. Mongolia enjoyed its last heyday during the 13th century where Genghis Khan thundered across the steppes to create the largest land empire the world has ever known. During most of the 20th century, Mongolia slumbered under socialist rule, Even today one-third of its people live as nomads.
But now Mongolia matters, a natural resource boom has transformed the country making it the fastest growing economy on the planet. Today in the wasteland that gave Marco Polo nightmares for years after he traversed it, a colossal encampment rises like a mirage. Massive blue warehouses dot the landscape, while conveyor belts transport rocks from deposits roughly the size of Manhattan.
The Oyu Tolgoi project is the largest foreign investment Mongolia has ever seen. The market demands from countries such as China, Russia and elsewhere could see Mongolia’s GDP rise by as much as 30%. Total employment levels could also rise by as much as 10% over the life of the mine as Oui Tolgoi becomes a major force for change.
