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Mines/Mongolia

Oyu Tolgoi mine

Oyu Tolgoi mine, Mongolia. Producing, open pit and underground, mining copper, gold, silver since 2011.

Why Oyu Tolgoi is famous

Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi started open-pit mining in 2011, with the concentrator running in 2013. Underground mining reached sustainable production in March 2023, through shafts about 1.3 km deep. It produced 345 kt of copper in concentrate in 2025 (100% basis).1,2,3

Story cards

What kind of deposit

Porphyry copper

Oyu Tolgoi today

Where copper is mined todayWhere gold is mined todayWhere silver is mined todayMining in Mongolia

Where next

People

Led byRobert FriedlandIvanhoe began exploring Oyu Tolgoi in 2000.4

Deposit types

An example ofPorphyry copperOyu Tolgoi belongs to the porphyry copper family of deposits.5

Sources

  1. Oyu Tolgoi operation page Rio Tinto
  2. Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 Rio Tinto (SEC)
  3. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  4. Robert Friedland Canadian Mining Hall of Fame
  5. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

Time machineOyu Tolgoi from spaceNothing for twenty-five years, then a whole mine in ten.History of miningThe giants: how the largest mines in the world were found1935-2025Copper drill-hole columns over the Cobar Basin on a satellite map of New South WalesData storyUnder New South WalesDrill holes · New South WalesHistory of miningThe first miners: ochre, flint, copper and silver25000 BC-AD 400

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Pictures: Escondida Mine, Chile, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); Timna in de Negevwoestijn; rotspartij "de zuilen van Salomo", Poll, Willem van de / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).