Kazakhstan’s government says that Arcelor Mittal can stay in the country if it meets requirements

According to Kanat Sharlapayev, minister of industry and construction of Kazakhstan, the change of investor of ArcelorMittal Temirtau (AMT) isn’t a mandatory obligation for the company if it wants to continue operating in Kazakhstan after the tragedy at the Kazakhstanskaya mine.

What does the ministry want from AMT? If the investor wants to work in Kazakhstan further, the company must obey the laws of the country, Sharlapayev underlined. He also said that the company is going to face the consequences of the official investigation into the deaths of five miners.

«Any change of an investor should be made on a voluntary basis. This means that someone gives his share to someone else and then leaves. If we talked about a certain entity, you should know that there were several incidents that the government has been investigating for a while. I think that once the investigation is over, the company will face consequences,» he said during a press briefing in the cabinet.

What does Sharlapayev want to achieve? As the minister highlighted, AMT must follow safety rules and environmental legislation.

«Let’s calm down a little bit. What happened was a tragedy. We totally understand this. But what do we want? We want such tragedies to never happen again, which would require significant improvement of technical safety at the enterprise,» Sharlapayev said.

The context. After the death of five miners due to a massive fire at the Kazakhstanskaya mine, many brought the idea of kicking out Arcelor Mittal from Kazakhstan.

On August 22, Yerulan Zhamaubaev, minister of finance, told reporters that the authorities were negotiating with the shareholders of AMT conditions of their leaving, as the political decision on this issue had already been made. However, Minister of Industry Sharlapayev later denied rumors that assets of AMT would be given to other investors.