Kazakhstan includes new gas reserves of 113 bcm in federal balance in 2023-2024 - authorities

ASTANA. Dec 12 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan's mineral resource base includes nearly 10,000 deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons and groundwater, and new reserves of natural gas registered with the government over the past two years total 113 billion cubic meters, Yerlan Akbarov, Chairman of the Geology Committee of the Industry and Construction Ministry, said.

"The government balance overall accounts for over 987 deposits of solid minerals, 355 hydrocarbons, 3,666 common minerals, and 4,540 groundwater deposits," Akbarov said at a briefing on Thursday.

Akbarov also said that 27 deposits of solid minerals, 10 hydrocarbon deposits, and 23 groundwater deposits were registered with the government for the first time in 2023-2024.

"There was an increase in resources and reserves for the following types of minerals: gold at 522 tonnes, silver at 281,000 tonnes, chrome ores at 2.383 million tonnes, uranium at 44,000 tonnes, copper at 800,000 tonnes, phosphorite ores at 82 million tonnes, oil at 277 million tonnes, gas at 113 bcm, condensate at 1.9 million tonnes, and groundwater at 155,800 cubic meters per day," he said.

Akbarov said that gold has the highest reserve replenishment at a coefficient of 1.2.

"For example, we mine one tonne of gold and replenish approximately 1.2 tonnes. The replenishment coefficient is from 0.4 to 1 for lead, zinc, copper, and gold," he noted.

Gold reserves in Kazakhstan are generally calculated for 20 years of extraction, and copper for 40 years. "The reserve supply is 40 years for many minerals. One should take into account that there are certain geological and technical difficulties. There are individual deposits, where the supply is 10 and even five years. The supply is generally on average 20 years in the republic," Akbarov said.