SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - Kazakhstan has placed construction work at its three largest gas processing projects under weekly government monitoring, a step aimed at keeping the flagship developments on schedule as the country races to meet surging domestic demand and expand its role as a Eurasian energy supplier, the state news agency Qazinform reported Tuesday.
The projects under watch sit at the heart of Kazakhstan's plan to lift marketable gas output to 34.6 billion cubic meters by 2030. Two plants at the giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea will process one billion and 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year, a facility at the Karachaganak field in the northwest will handle four billion cubic meters, and a plant in the western city of Zhanaozen will add 900 million cubic meters, according to Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry. QazaqGaz, the national gas company, has estimated the cost of the two Kashagan plants alone at up to $3.5 billion, and is building them jointly with UCC Holding of Qatar.
Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov issued the monitoring order at a government meeting on Tuesday, instructing the Energy Ministry, the Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund and QazaqGaz to track construction and installation work at the three sites every week. He tied the projects directly to Kazakhstan's energy security, its appeal to foreign investors and the quality of life of its citizens.
"Economic growth is accompanied by steadily increasing demand for gas from both households and the industrial sector," Bektenov said. "We must ensure a long-term balance between the industry's resource capacity and the needs of the economy. Projects to expand gas transportation infrastructure, build gas processing plants, and extend gasification across the regions are being implemented consistently."
The new plants are expected to increase commercial gas supplies for the domestic market and feed Kazakhstan's push into petrochemicals, an industry the government sees as a way to earn more from its hydrocarbons than raw exports allow. "These facilities are expected to increase commercial gas production for the domestic market and serve as key drivers of the petrochemical industry's development," Bektenov said, adding that gas infrastructure must be delivered on time to support new enterprises and strengthen the country's industrial base.
The monitoring order reflects a broader campaign by Astana to turn its geography and resources into leverage. Kazakhstan, the largest economy in Central Asia, has invested heavily in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, known as the Middle Corridor, which carries goods and energy from Central Asia across the Caspian Sea and through the South Caucasus to Europe without passing through Russia. The route drew fresh attention in May when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting Astana, called it the present-day equivalent of the Silk Road and said Turkiye wanted to carry larger volumes of Kazakh oil to world markets, as KazMunayGas and Turkish state energy company TPAO signed agreements on joint oil and gas projects.
The energy leg of that strategy is already moving. Kazakhstan is expanding its Caspian port of Aktau and plans to ship 2.2 million tons of oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline this year, while its parliament in March approved a green energy corridor with Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan that would send renewable electricity to Europe through cables laid on the Caspian seabed.
At home, the government has paired export ambitions with a drive to connect more of its own people to gas. Gasification reached 62.4 percent of the population by the end of 2024, covering 12.6 million citizens, and the government has set a target of 12.8 million people this year, backed by 112.5 billion tenge in funding from the state budget and Samruk-Kazyna for 84 projects.
Kazakhstan produced 59 billion cubic meters of gas in 2024 and plans to raise annual production to 74 billion cubic meters by 2030.
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