ULAN BATOR, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia has put into operation its second fuel processing plant here, the government's press office said Wednesday.
The plant, built in Nalaikh district of the capital city Ulan Bator, has an annual capacity of processing 600,000 tons of fuel.
"Reducing air pollution in Ulan Bator was one of our government's challenges. Thanks to the government's decision in 2019 to replace low-grade coal with processed fuel in Ulan Bator, air pollution in the city, which is home to over 1.5 million people, has been reduced by 50 percent," Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh said at the opening ceremony of the plant on Tuesday.
The first fuel processing plant, commissioned in early 2019, has the same processing capacity as the new one.
The Mongolian government reduced the price of processed fuel by 50 percent from Dec. 3 to April 1 in order to support the livelihoods of residents of ger areas of Ulan Bator during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The original price of processed fuel is 150,000 Mongolian tugriks (about 52.8 U.S. dollars) per ton.
Around 220,000 households live in Ulan Bator's ger (yurt, or round-shaped dwelling) districts, with no running water, central heating or sewerage systems, according to government data. Enditem