Kazakhstan must build new refinery - Nazarbayev

Kazakhstan needs to boost deep processing of oil, said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a nationwide teleconference on the Industrialization Day held December 25 in Astana.

He said amid current crisis of lower oil and gas prices the refining is the way out.

“We still need to build a new refinery, to produce more finished products,” said Nazarbayev.

Recent years, there were talks in Kazakhstan on the need to build the fourth refinery.

In the fall of 2014, the Ministry of Energy said that the government has proposed to expand the existing Shymkent refinery instead of building the new one, azh.kz refers to inform.kz.

Currently, the country has three refineries - Shymkent, Pavlodar, and Atyrau.

Nursultan Nazarbayev also stressed it is necessary to construct a number of large oil and gas enterprises worth over $6-8 billion to produce everything - from pharmaceuticals to apparel.

According to the President, Kazakhstan also needs a new copper plant to export its products worldwide.