PANNIER: Central Asia can aim for big league in critical raw materials

The world’s largest uranium producer, Kazakhstan’s state atomic company Kazatomprom, is looking to expand its uranium mining beyond Kazakhstan’s borders.

Kazakhstan’s businesses, both state and private, are in fact accustomed to finding opportunities beyond the country’s borders, and a Kazatomprom deal with Tajikistan follows on from earlier Kazakh forays into other countries.

The agreement with Tajikistan could also indicate that Kazakhstan is looking to become not just a source of critical raw materials (CRM) that nearly every country in the world is now seeking, but also a processor of these materials and supplier of products ready for use.

New partnership

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev travelled to Tajikistan on August 22.

During his visit, Kazatomprom and state company Tajik Rare Metals (Tajredmet) signed a memorandum of understanding on “expanding cooperation in the field of mining and processing of uranium, rare and rare-earth metals.”

Kazakhstan’s mining industry is already well developed. Kazatomprom has a dozen large uranium fields and is working with foreign partners from Canada, China, France, Japan and Russia to develop them.

Tajikistan was a source of uranium during Soviet times, but, after the arrival of its 1991 independence, it ceased mining operations. It is presently in no position financially to engage in surveying and mining on its own.

Tajikistan is Central Asia’s poorest country, while Kazakhstan is its richest.

Kazakhstan’s wealth mainly comes from its vast oil reserves. Around 80% of its exports, or more than 50mn tonnes of oil, go west, much of it to the European Union.

Kazakhstan’s interest in its exported oil does not end at the country’s borders.

KazMunayGaz (KMG) is the state oil and natural gas company. KMG subsidiary KazTransOil has, since 2008, owned and operated Georgia’s Black Sea port at Batumi, a key link in Kazakhstan’s oil exports to Europe.

On the other side of the Black Sea, KMG, since 2007, has owned the Petromidia oil refinery in Romania.

To bring the oil from the east side of the Black Sea to markets westward, Kazakhstan’s state maritime shipping company Kazmortransflot already has two Aframax-class tankers (deadweight tonnage 115,000 tonnes each).

KMG and the United Arab Emirates company Abu Dhabi Ports Group in February formed the Caspian Integrated Maritime Solutions (CIMS) joint venture that aims to purchase two more tankers with a deadweight tonnage of 80,000 tonnes each to ship oil from Georgian Black Sea ports.

This is partly a response to problems at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, the end-point of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) 1,500-kilometre (932-mile) pipeline that delivers oil from Kazakhstan’s western onshore and offshore fields.

In 2022, operations at Novorossiysk were suspended four times. Some saw the disruption as Kremlin punishment for Kazakh officials refusing to support Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.

Wellfield development drills at the Inkai Uranium Mine in Kazakhstan (Credit: Kazatomprom, cc-by-sa 4.0).

Kazatomprom’s deal with TajRedMet has its own characteristics, but follows the principle of controlling production from raw material to finished product, with a focus on maximising profits.

It is unclear how much uranium Tajikistan currently has since the government there has declared this a state secret. Only in 2008 did it lift a restriction on foreign companies’ involvement in the country’s uranium industry.

Estimates vary from a very low 20,000 tonnes to as much as 14% of total global reserves, though the latter figure seems overly optimistic.

However, besides uranium, Tajik authorities pointed out in Janaury that in the country are “800 deposits of minerals, rare and precious metals, including 7 and other rare minerals.”

Tajikistan also has a Soviet-era uranium processing plant in the northern city of Buston, (formerly Chkalovsk). The Leninabad Mining and Chemical Combine was built in the 1940s. It was the first Soviet plant to produce yellowcake using uranium from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

If the plant can be put back into full operation, it would give Kazakhstan an additional processing facility to add to the plants in Kazakhstan that are already producing yellowcake and fuel pellets.

German companies Knauf Group, GP Günter Papenburg AG and Roxtec, and the German Institute of Lithium, formed a consortium for mining lithium in Kazakhstan in February.

In July 2023, German company HMS Bergbau AG announced it would invest up to $700mn in exploring, producing and processing rare metals in East Kazakhstan Province.

Those projects should provide Kazakhstan with additional knowledge in working with Tajikistan to extract rare earth elements (REEs) and produce electronics, magnets, batteries and other items.

Corruption is a problem in Tajikistan, as is true for all the Central Asian states, including Kazakhstan, but Kazakh banks have been operating in Tajikistan for years, albeit not all of them successfully.

Tajikistan will benefit from working with a fellow Central Asian country. China and Russia have dominated investment in Tajikistan and, especially in the case of China, Tajikistan has accrued a substantial debt.

Kazatomprom will have to put up the bulk of the money for uranium and CRM exploration. Once deposits are mapped, it will require significant funds to bring equipment to the likely remote sites in Tajikistan’s mountains to extract the minerals.

TajRedMet will send a delegation to Kazakhstan soon to view Kazakhstan’s mining and processing operations and continue talks on the two countries’ planned joint venture.

Strategic minerals bloc

The five Central Asian leaders lately met at their annual summit, which this year took place in Kazakh capital Astana.

At the summit, President Tokayev spoke about progress in regional cooperation and the need to “create preconditions for the transformation of the region into one of the drivers of the modern world order.”

The United States and European countries have already been in discussions with Central Asian countries about the possibility of acquiring CRMs. Representatives from China’s Zhicun Lithium Industry Group, meanwhile, were in Kyrgyzstan at the end of June discussing exploration, mining and processing projects.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan all have CRM deposits. There are also processing plants such as the Kara-Balta Ore Mining Combine in Kyrgyzstan. It currently handles gold and molybdenum, but it was used for uranium processing during the Soviet era.

Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Plant has four metallurgical plants, while there is a uranium processing facilty at Surgraly that was opened in 2014.

The Central Asian countries lack necessary equipment for prospecting, mining and processing CRMs.

Kazakhstan alone will not be able to finance all that is needed.

It will also take several years of work before production can start in earnest.

Right now, there are nearly 450 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide, with 60 more under construction and approximately 110 more planned. New factories are being built to provide the parts for computers, cars, batteries, and more. All need CRMs.

If Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan can cooperate and pool resources, as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan now appear to be doing, they could maximise their potential as a supplier of raw, semi-processed or fully-processed materials that are sure to be in high demand in coming years.