A refinery located in southern Kazakhstan is quietly brewing a transformation. A team of experts from China and representatives from Kazakhstan gathered in Qingdao to draw up a blueprint for the upgrade and expansion of this key energy facility, marking a new stage of technological implementation in energy cooperation between the two countries.

The Qingdao Conference has finalized the plan

On February 4, 2026, Dauret Arekbayev, Director of the Petroleum Transport and Processing Department of the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, led a delegation to visit Qingdao, China and held a strategic meeting with Chinese partners. The core topic of the meeting is to discuss the specific feasibility plan of increasing the annual processing capacity of the Shymkent Refinery to 12 million tons. Both parties reached a consensus on the basic implementation parameters of the project at the meeting and officially signed the relevant protocol, marking the transition of the project from the early planning stage to the substantive technical development stage. The meeting explicitly requires strict adherence to the established project timeline.

Dual line parallel expansion blueprint

This expansion will adopt a set of expansion plans called 6+6, with the core being the construction of two independent production units each with an annual processing capacity of 6 million tons. The entire technical design strictly follows the unified technical specifications and pre feasibility study report previously confirmed by both parties. To ensure the smooth progress of the project, Kazakhstan Petroleum Products Co., Ltd., responsible for operating the refinery, has provided the necessary preliminary technical data. The East China Design Institute of PetroChina, which is responsible for the main design work, is also ready and promises to strictly follow the standards to start subsequent work, ensuring seamless connection and integration between the new production capacity and existing facilities. Keywords: International News and Information, International News Network

Assist Kazakhstan in achieving energy independence

The expansion of the Shymkent Refinery is not an isolated project, it is part of Kazakhstan's grand plan to comprehensively enhance its domestic oil processing capacity. Under the synchronous expansion framework of the country's three major refineries, the total annual oil processing capacity of Kazakhstan is expected to significantly increase from the current 18 million tons to 39 million tons. In addition, Harbin is actively attracting investment to promote the construction of a brand new refinery with an annual processing capacity of 10 million tons. This series of measures will greatly enhance Kazakhstan's energy self-sufficiency and industrial level, and the continuous and in-depth cooperation between China and Kazakhstan in this field is a vivid manifestation of mutual benefit and win-win under the framework of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt.Editor/Gao Xue