Kazakhstan Targets Major Expansion in Geological Exploration

Kazakhstan aims to significantly expand its geological exploration activities by early 2026, increasing the total area by one-third.

The announcement was made by Margulan Baibatyrov, Deputy Chairman of the Geology Committee under the Ministry of Industry and Construction, during an international mining congress, The Caspian Post reports, citing The Times of Central Asia.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev previously highlighted this initiative at the October 2024 meeting of the Foreign Investors Council, noting that geological exploration currently covers approximately 1.6 million square kilometers. He instructed that this figure be expanded to 2.2 million square kilometers.

“By 2026, we plan to increase the area of geological exploration by 680,000 square kilometers,” Baibatyrov confirmed.

Over the past five years, the mining industry in Kazakhstan has attracted around $1 billion in private investment. Of this, KZT 41 billion ($80.3 million) has come from major international companies specifically for geological exploration.

Since 2018, Kazakhstan has issued 2,906 exploration licenses and 111 production licenses. The country’s mineral resource base includes more than 980 solid mineral deposits. Exploration activities are ongoing at 12 sites, with notable recent discoveries such as the Kuyrektykol deposit, which contains approximately 800,000 tons of rare earth metals.

Despite these advancements, Baibatyrov noted several persistent challenges in the geological exploration sector, including:

• A shortage of qualified scientific personnel;
• Low levels of natural resource replenishment;
• Insufficient public funding for geological studies.