According to Minister of Industry and Construction Kanat Sharlapayev, Kazakhstan will be able to maintain its current copper production rate for only 40 more years with the existing reserves.
«The reserve-replacement ratio (RRR) for gold is 1.2, which means that the amount of newly explored reserves exceeds the current gold production rate. The RRR for copper, however, is 0.7. This means that the copper reserves on state books will be sufficient for only 40 years. At the same time, subsoil users have been actively exploring new prospective copper fields,» Sharlapayev noted.
The minister also highlighted that there are 987 discovered mineral deposits in Kazakhstan. While the reserves of iron, manganese, gold, uranium, oil and gas have been growing over the past three decades, the situation is different for copper, zinc, lead and aluminum. Kazakhstan is consuming these reserves faster than it is discovering new deposits. Exports of refined copper and copper alloys account for 5% of Kazakhstan’s total exports.
In 2023, ten active mining businesses invested about $77.7 million in Kazakhstan, including $15.1 million in social liabilities, facilitating the exploration of 25,000 square kilometers of land.
For instance, Australian company Fortescue conducted exploration work at 32 fields in the Aktobe, Karaganda, Abay, and Zhambyl regions, investing $7.5 million in these efforts.
Rio Tinto, another company with Australian and British roots, holds licenses for ten fields, primarily in the Aktobe region, where it has been exploring quite actively. Over its years of operation in Kazakhstan, Rio Tinto has invested about $4.1 million in exploration work in the country.
The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, in conjunction with Tau-Ken Samruk, has started researching the Aral Sea region in pursuit of lithium deposits. Other companies such as Barrick, BHP, Teck, and First Quantum have also deployed exploration operations in Kazakhstan.
