Astana, 4 November, . A National Laboratory of Critical Materials will be set up in Astana to speed up Kazakhstan’s integration into global production chains and reduce dependence on imports, first deputy prime minister Nurlybek Nalibayev said at a press conference in the Government.
The sector will focus on four areas: battery materials, processing and production of materials for jet engine parts, semiconductors, and a full production chain for permanent magnets. Germany’s Bergbau AG, Korea’s Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources and Australia’s Lindian Resources Limited were named as partners. For the first time in the country, state geological mapping at a scale of 1:50,000 has begun: 20 projects covering about 100,000 square kilometres are planned over three years, preliminary data on the prospects of seven sites have already been obtained, and they are being prepared for auction next year.
Energy minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov added that 112 oil and gas blocks will be put up for electronic auction by the end of the year — nearly as many as in the whole of 2023–2025 (126). KazMunayGas chairman Askhat Khassenov spoke of seismic surveys covering 60,000 linear kilometres at depths of up to 8 km.
What it means: The state is searching for new deposits with modern methods while building a laboratory meant to turn the raw materials found into materials for batteries, magnets and microelectronics.
Who benefits: Subsoil investors, who will get more blocks at auction, and the foreign partners already in the projects; the timing and budget of the laboratory have not been named.
Background: According to Nalibayev, about 4.8 million units of primary geological information are being integrated into the unified subsoil use platform.
