A plastic bucket placed on the shelves of a supermarket in Kazakhstan used to have to be transported from abroad by sea. This inconspicuous detail hides a long-standing embarrassment for a major oil producing country: oil and natural gas are extracted from their own underground, while processed products such as plastics and fertilizers have to be bought back with foreign exchange. Nowadays, this situation is being rewritten by a group of construction sites that often weigh millions of tons. At the 13th Central Asia and Caspian Sea Business Summit held in Astana, Timuran Urkenbayev, Director of the Oil and Gas Chemicals Department of the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, revealed that the country plans to launch multiple large-scale oil and gas chemical projects by 2029, covering polyethylene, butadiene, and urea. His judgment is straightforward: petroleum and natural gas chemical industry is one of the most promising directions for the development of manufacturing industry.

Billion dollar blueprint

The story begins with a document. The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan approved the development roadmap for the petroleum and natural gas chemical industry from 2024 to 2030 in October 2024, focusing on five large-scale projects with a total investment of approximately 12 billion US dollars. According to official estimates, these projects are expected to create up to 20000 permanent and temporary job opportunities upon implementation, while also boosting domestic raw material consumption, production, and export potential. In order to reassure investors, the Ministry of Energy has also taken the lead in drafting specialized laws for the oil and gas chemical industry, regulating the entire process from raw material supply and pricing, domestic market cultivation, production coordination to investment project support; The National Industrial Petrochemical Technology Park in Atyrau State, as a core carrier, has attracted multiple enterprises to settle in and become an industrial depression with a cluster of projects.

From zero to 1.25 million tons

The most iconic project is the ongoing construction of a polyethylene factory with an annual output of 1.25 million tons. It is located in Atyrau Oblast and its raw material is ethane separated from the Tengiz oil field. Kazakhstan National Oil and Gas Company, together with partners such as Sinopec and Russia's Sibur, is jointly promoting it, which is considered one of the largest manufacturing projects in the country. At present, the consumption of polyethylene in the country is almost entirely dependent on imports. After the project is put into operation, it will achieve a large proportion of import substitution and support the export of high value-added products. The supporting natural gas separation complex is also being promoted in sync with the factory, and is also planned to be completed by 2029 to provide stable supply for downstream devices.

Prior to this, Kazakhstan had already put into operation its first integrated natural gas chemical complex in 2022, with an annual production capacity of 500000 tons of polypropylene and an actual output of 375000 tons by 2025, which basically met the domestic main demand. In 2021, a methyl tert butyl ether plant with an annual output of 57000 tons was put into operation in Chimkent, filling the domestic gap.

The industrial chain is closing

In addition to polyethylene, the game is also extending towards fine chemicals and fertilizers. Kazakhstan is advancing a project with an annual production capacity of 339000 tons of butadiene and 880000 tons of urea. The former connects industrial raw materials such as synthetic rubber and ABS resin, while the latter directly targets agricultural input guarantee. Butadiene, urea, polyethylene, and polypropylene are interconnected, and the product matrix covers from industrial raw materials to agricultural inputs.keywords:New energy information network

As emphasized by the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, a complete chain from raw material extraction, basic petrochemical product production to subsequent deep processing is taking shape. For Kazakhstan, the way wealth is measured is changing: no longer just by how many barrels of oil are extracted underground, but by how much plastic, fertilizer, and local employment opportunities these oil and gas can ultimately turn into.Editor/Yang Meiling