Kazakhstan is a net energy exporter, with large reserves of uranium, oil and coal. Fossil-fired power plants are the basis of the electric energy. The energy policy aims to achieve energy independence through electric power production with maximum use of cheap, low-grade coal. Introduction of nuclear power is included as a necessary option for energy security.

There are six gas pipelines that connect Kazakhstan to other central Asian republics and Russia, but the gas producing regions in the western part of Kazakhstan are not connected to the populous southeast and industrial north parts of the country. Kazakhstan has a major need for more gas pipelines. Kazakhstan is rich in natural resources, but its power sector needs considerable rehabilitation and upgrading to improve the efficiency of energy production and use. The TRACECA Program (Transport System Europe-Caucasus-Asia) is developing an East-West corridor from Central Asia, through the Caucasus, across the Black Sea to Europe.

Kazakhstan is in the process of transition toward a free market, privatization in energy, and encouraging foreign investment to exploit the oil and gas resources of the country. In 1997, the government of Kazakhstan issued a decree on privatization and restructuring in the energy sector. Through this decree, all companies in the energy sector have gone through an incorporation process and are legally prepared for future privatization and restructuring. The Ministry of Oil and Gas and Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of the Republic of Kazakhstan are the main government entity responsible for implementing the policy.

The energy policy of Kazakhstan aims to achieve energy independence through electric power production with maximum use of its cheap, low-grade coal. Table 2.1 shows the dynamical increase of the production of coal, oil and natural gas in the last few years.

Table 2.1. DOMESTIC COAL, OIL AND NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION

Kazakhstan, the second largest of the former Soviet republics in territory, possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves (see Table 1) as well as plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also is a large agricultural – livestock and grain – producer. Kazakhstan’s industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources and also on a growing machine-building sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some defence items.

Table 1. ESTIMATED ENERGY RESERVES

* Solid, Liquid: Million tons; Gas: Billion m³; Uranium: Metric tons; Hydro, Renewable: TW

Power plants fuelled with coal and crude oil are the basis of Kazakhstan’s electrical energy. Coal is the country’s largest industry, with planned further development if corresponding investments are secured. Coal reserves are estimated at 64 billion tons. Annual hard coal production is about 111.8 million tons; brown coal production is estimated at 4.6 million metric tons. Kazakhstan also has a well-developed oil and gas industry. More than 1,600 oil and gas fields have been located in Tengiz and Karachaganak, containing more than 2.9 billion tons of conditional fuel. Natural gas production was estimated at 5,416 million m³in 1993. Kazakhstan has begun building a major oil pipeline, 1,200 km from the west to the east. Construction of three new oil refineries is planned. Every year, about 25 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons and 7 billion m³ of natural gas are extracted. About 20% of the world’s uranium reserves are in Kazakhstan.

Information not available.

Table 2. ENERGY STATISTICS (EJ)

* Latest available data

** Energy consumption = Primary energy consumption in country.

*** Solid fuels include coal, lignite

**** - hydro, atomic in 1990 year, and other

Source: The Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Statistics

To ensure sustainable and balanced growth of the economy through the effective development of the power industry, the need to implement the following tasks:

• Modernization, reconstruction of existing generating capacity and construction of new generating capacity.

• Construction, modernization and reconstruction of power facilities.

• The development of the coal industry.

• Improving the structure of the electricity market:

• Entering the market power;

• the development of the spot market through legislative recognition norms sale-purchase certain volumes of electricity in spot trading.

• Involvement in the balance of renewable energy sources.

The total length of electric lines of all voltages is more than 460,000 km. The first section of the international Siberia-Kazakhstan-Ural transmission line (1,900 km) is operational. This line is expanded to the south to connect north and south Kazakhstan and the power grids in Central and Middle Asian countries. Electricity production is given in Table 3.

The biggest producers of electricity in Kazakhstan are - the "Euro-Asian Power Corporation" (in 1998 14% of total power production), the Joint-stock Company "GRES-2" Pavlodar Region (8.9%), the "Kazakhmis Corporation" (8.5%), the Closed Joint-stock Company "Almaty Power Consolidated" (7.8%), the Open Joint-stock Company "Ispat-Karmet" (6.8%), LLP, "Karaganda Power" (4.4%) and the Joint-stock Company "Aluminium of Kazakhstan" (3.9%).

Table 3. ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION AND CAPACITY

* – Preliminary data

Table 4. ENERGY RELATED RATIOS

Source: The Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on statistic

The nuclear scientific-industrial complex in Kazakhstan was established as a unified part of the atomic industry and science in the former Soviet Union.

Kazakhstan's uranium industry consists of uranium prospecting firms, a number of natural mines using mining and underground leaching techniques, and a metallurgical plant producing fuel pellets for NPP fuel assemblies. The power plant at Aktau (MAEC) was shut down in June 1999. It consisted of natural gas units and a nuclear unit. The latter unit is a BN-350 sodium cooled fast neutron reactor.

On the territory of the former Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site three research reactors are engaged in testing and development of nuclear space engines and safe nuclear power plants (NPP). The fourth research reactor is located at the RSE Institute of Nuclear Physics, near Almaty.

The following enterprises are involved in the nuclear industry:

RSE "Institute of Nuclear Physics," situated in Almaty;

NNC, situated in Kurchatov, has the following branches:

"Institute of Atomic Energy"

"Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology";

Table 5. STATUS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

BN-350 reactor facility - fast neutron sodium-cooled reactor - is located near Aktau city in the part of the eastern Caspian Sea shore belonging to the Republic of Kazakhstan. It was designed and built for electricity generation and seawater desalination for the Aktau region.

The BN-350 reactor was commissioned in 1973 and operated for its design life of 20 years.

In 1993, on the basis of estimation of actual reactor condition, qualified personnel availability and taking into consideration significant progress in fulfillment of measures by safety enhancement, a lifetime extension until 2003 was granted. Thereafter it operated on the basis of annual licenses of the regulatory body - The Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Committee (KAEC) and positive conclusion of its safety level from General Designer (VNIPIET, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation), Chief Designer (OKBM, Nizhni Novgorod, Russian Federation) and research Manager (FEI, Obninsk, Russian Federation) of reactor facility.

Due to financial and technical problems it was concluded that the further use of the reactor is not safe. In April 1999, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan adopted the Decree on the Decommission of BN-350 reactor.

As the decision on the reactor decommissioning was adopted before the end of scheduled operation (2003), the plan to decommission the BN-350 reactor had not yet been developed. To determine the activities required for ensuring reactor safety and preparation for decommissioning, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan had developed and approved a "Plan of priority measures on BN-350 reactor decommissioning". This plan has the status of managerial and ruling document and defines the activity on provision of safety for the BN-350 and preparation of decommissioning while the "Project of BN-350 Decommissioning" is being approved. By now, the following activities have been fulfilled:

1. All spent nuclear fuel had been transferred from the interim spent fuel storage facility at the BN-350 site to the long-term spent fuel storage facility at Baikal-1 site.

2. Drainage of primary radioactive sodium has been carried out and is in storage vessels. Secondary nonradioactive sodium is drained and utilized.

3. Technical design of the Liquid Radioactive Waste Processing Facility has been developed.

4. Technical task for the Solid Radioactive Waste Processing Facility design has been developed.

5. The main works on Combined Engineering and Radiation Survey (KIRO) of systems and components of primary and secondary cooling circuits, as well as of other reactor plant engineering systems and external communications have been completed.

   Scheduled decommissioning phases

Management of fuel removal

RSE «Institute of Nuclear Physics»

RSE «National Nuclear Centre»

Kazakhstan has three research reactors at the National Nuclear Centre and one research reactor at Institute Nuclear Physics where the following research is carried out:

• radiation material science; study of the interaction between construction materials and coolants; investigation of fission produced emission from fuel rods, its precipitation and filtration under different conditions;

• safety of nuclear power plants; fuel assemblies and rod tests at transition and break-down modes of operation; simulation of reactor core fragment melting and interaction of melted material with coolant;

• development and implementation of nuclear physics methods and technologies; production of isotopes for different applications, for example, thallium-201 chloride for early diagnostics of heart decease.

The work on creation and development of Kazakhstan nuclear power composed one of the principal sections in the Republican Target Scientific-and-Technical Program elaborated in 1992 - 1993 and defined goals, tasks and directions of the National Nuclear Center and its institutions.

Kazakhstan Governmental Resolution #925 dated August 20, 2002 adopts the development concept for uranium industry and nuclear power engineering of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the years 2002-2030. The tasks put by in the concept aim at transformation of Kazakhstan power engineering into a high-tech, science intensive, dynamically developing branch that would become a solid basis of forced and sustainable development of the national economics and the nation's prosperity improvement. Now, a national program of RK nuclear industry and power engineering development is under elaboration.

The Program covers the period 2000 to 2030 and defines a strategy of the first stage in creating and developing the national nuclear power.

One of the first steps in carrying out this program was to conduct a feasibility study for construction of nuclear power plants. The NNC RK specialists performed a great work to conduct feasibility studies for building nuclear power plants in certain regions (South Kazakhstan NPP), to validate investments in construction of low-power atomic plants in Leninogorsk and Kurchatov, to develop feasibility proposals on use of nuclear power sources in order to solve problems of Almaty heat-and-power supply.

A successful development of the nuclear power is impossible without solving problems of its safe operation. To create reactors of enhanced safety and systems for localizing design and out-of-design accidents there is a need for detailed analysis of processes related to core melting, fuel, material and nuclear reactor structure behavior in transient and accident modes. One of the directions to validate nuclear power safety is experimental simulation of processes accompanying specific phases in evolution of NPP severe accidents that involve reactor core melting.

At present final phases of severe accidents are least examined when core materials melt (corium) falls on a lower head of the reactor power vessel. The work in this direction on the Semipalatinsk experimental base was started in 1983 and is still continued.

The uniqueness of NNC RK experimental base, results and experience gained through studying the behavior of nuclear reactor fuel, material and structure in simulating transient and accident operation modes cause interest of specialists from different countries.

The most important studies in recent years are those on two projects: experimental studies to validate light-water reactor safety (COTELS project) and experimental studies to validate safety of fast reactors (EAGLE project).

Kazakhstan national projects under the program of technical cooperation with

IAEA for 2012-2014

European Regional projects of IAEA for 2014-2015 in which Kazakhstan is taking part

Atomic Energy Committee of the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the regulatory authority.

The licensing stages for nuclear installations can be briefly represented as follows:

• Application for the License;

• Analysis of application materials;

• Inspection at the nuclear installation;

• Conclusion on application materials examination;

• Conclusion on nuclear installation inspection;

• General conclusion on obtaining license; License.