Introduction

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global coalition of governments, companies and civil society equally working together to strengthen governance and improve stakeholders’ responsibilities in accountable use of revenues from natural resources (minerals, oil, natural gas) for the benefits of society by ensuring the transparent reporting.

In EITI Reporting, companies in extractive industry publish what they pay and governments publish what they receive from these companies where such information is reviewed and reconciled by an independent international audit firm; the reconciled reports then to be prepared and released transparently to the public. This process will be performed under coordination and oversight of multi-stakeholder group comprised of government, companies and civil society.

Background

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (“EITI”) is a global standard for improving transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sectors. The Government of Mongolia announced the country’s adoption of EITI in 2006. In follow-up actions, a National EITI Council and a multi-stakeholder working group (MSWG), comprised of representatives of the government, mining companies, and civil society, were established to implement EITI. Since adopting EITI, Mongolia has produced eleven EITI reports, and has appointed the consortium of Hart Group and Ulaanbaatar Audit as the Independent Administrator for the current (twelfth) report.


Data

This report includes additional open data, stored in .xlsx format, which allows to analyze information more deeply.

Data variables from the Appendix 30: Information of used water

  • Company’s registration number
  • Company name
  • Aimag/Capital
  • Soum/District
  • Intended use of water as per contract (\(m^3\))
  • Actual usage of water (\(m^3\)) (Surface water)
  • Actual usage of water (\(m^3\)) (Ground water)
  • Actual usage of water (\(m^3\)) (Total)
  • Good practices such as using gray water or wasted water from domestic use (\(m^3\))

General water consumption

The report provides only the summarized information about used water, reported by companies. The authors of the report state the following:

As requested by members of the MSWG of Mongolian EITI, we have requested from mining companies selected for 2017 EITI reconciliation to disclose information on their water consumption. In order to collect data of water consumption from companies, new template has been added on e-Reporting system and 132 companies have disclosed information on water consumption.

To summarise the reported 132 companies information, they have contracted to use water of 73,695,603.35 cubic meter, however actual consumption was 68,183,323.33 cubic meter or 92.5% of contract volume.

Oyu Tolgoi, Erdenet Mining Corporation, Baganuur and Shivee-Ovoo have led in volume of water consumed. Dong Sheng Petroleum Mongolia LLC has signed contract for water consumption of 4,432,458.26 cubic meters whereas they reported the actual consumption of 165,106.50 cubic meter. It was because favorable weather condition where dusty and stormy days were comparatively fewer this year and less water used for dusting-off, the company explains.

Intended use of water as per contract

First, the dataset allows to analyze how much water was intended to use in each aimag per contract (in \(m^3\)).

The data demonstrates that the highest consumption in 2017 was in Umnugobi aimag (20429104 \(m^3\)). Four aimags (Bayan-Ulgii, Uvs, Khuvsgul, Gobi-Altai) in 2017 had a low level of water consumption (from 22612 to 108000 \(m^3\) only).

Actual usage of water (\(m^3\)) (Total)

At the same time, the amount of actually used water per aimag in 2017 demonstrates a slightly different pattern.

As we can see, aimags with the highest and the lowest water consumption remain the same, but companies in some provinces (like Dornogobi) consumed much less water than they planned initially.

Intended consumption vs total consumption (\(m^3\))

Second, comparing the intended consumpion with the actual consumption, the chart demonstrates that in some aimags (like Tuv and Dornod) companies consumed more water than they planned initially.

Actual consumption of ground water (\(m^3\))

The analysis of the ground water consuption demonstrates that the same provinces (and Ulaanbaatar) among the leaders here too.

Actual consumption of surface water (\(m^3\))

At the same time, the surface water consumption demonstrates a different pattern. Companies in Tuv, Selenge, and Bulgan aimags were among the top surface water consumers in Mongolia in 2017.

Actual consumption of ground and surface water (\(m^3\))

The comparison allows to make a conclusion that mining companies in Mongloia primarily consumed the ground water in 2017. As it was mentioned above, companies in several provinces, were using primarily the surface water.

Water consumption by company

Finally, the data allows to visualize top companies, which consumed water the most in 2017 (total, ground, and surface).

Actual consumption of water in Mongolia (\(m^3\)): top 20 mining companies
Actual usage of ground water (\(m^3\)): top 20 mining companies
Actual usage of surface water (\(m^3\)): top 20 mining companies

Conclusion

This blog post allows to make the basic analysis of water consumption in Mongolia in 2017 by mining companies. Visualization of data clarifies which provinces in Mongolia have the highest level of water consumption (ground water, surface water, and total) and which companies were among leaders in water consumption in 2017.

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