Kazakhstan to produce crude as long as it brings benefits and is demanded in global markets: Energy Minister

Kazakhstan will never give up on producing oil, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports, citing the country’s Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik.

“Kazakhstan will never reject oil production as long as it brings benefits to the country’s people and as long as it is demanded in global markets (…) oil is not a renewable source of energy and we should think of new generations to come and their wellbeing. Therefore we are considering nuclear power capabilities and coal processing”, he said following a sitting in the country’s Majilis (lower chamber) on innovations in subsurface use.

As the country’s media reported earlier, the Ministry has been considering technology to produce synthetic oil out of coal.
“At some point in history production of oil turned out to be profitable, replacing other technologies (…) starting from the 1990ies people are fully aware that it is getting more and more expensive to produce oil (…) the human kind has started thinking of what might replace the oil era, investments have been injected into new technologies (…) that is something the Ministry should be focused on among other things”, he said.

“If we are convinced that synthetic oil out of coals is cost effective in Kazakhstan, a large-scaled production could be launched within 5 following years”, he said.

When asked about the timing of constructing the first nuclear power plant, Mr. Shkolnik said “no one, including me, is able to name a time (…) prep works are very time and effort-consuming, with all the details of power generation and distribution to be taken into due account”, adding that “Kazakhstan has a vast potential in the nuclear power industry”.