Budget negotiations and a new prime minister mean that Mongolia will likely delay to early next year the selection of winning bidders for the giant Tavan Tolgoi coking coal deposit, industry executives said.

Shortlisted bidders for Tavan Tolgoi include BHP Billiton, India's Jindal, Brazil's Vale, U.S. coal miner Peabody, and China's Shenhua, as well as South Korea's COPEC consortium, a group of Japanese companies, and a Russian consortium including Gazprom and Renova, according to an executive in Erdenes MGL, the state company that will own at least 51 percent of the project.