ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 7. Kazakhstan's Caspi Bitum plant plans to increase road bitumen production from 500,000 to 750,000 tons per year, Trend reports via KazMunayGas.
This became known during a working trip to the Mangistau region, where the head of KazMunayGas, Askhat Khassenov, reviewed the progress of the project to increase the oil processing capacity to 1.5 million tons per year at the Aktau Bitumen Plant of Caspi Bitum.
As of today, as part of the modernization project for the Aktau Bitumen Plant, the dismantling work and foundation pouring have been completely finished. Work is ongoing on the installation of equipment, pipelines, electrical equipment, and automation systems.
The delivery of equipment to the site is expected to be completed by mid-March. To speed up the project's implementation, the contractor is committed to conducting construction and installation works around the clock as the equipment is delivered (221 people are involved). The implementation of the project will fully meet the domestic market’s demand for high-quality road bitumen.
During the meeting, the results of the company’s operations in 2024 and the current tasks of the ongoing modernization were discussed. Work, which began in November 2024, is being carried out by the general contractor CITIC Construction, a subsidiary of CITIC Group. Capital investments in the project exceed $76 million. The completion of the work and the commissioning of the plant, with full technological capacity for bitumen production, is planned for the second quarter of this year.
Following the meeting, Hasenov instructed the management of Caspi Bitum LLP to continue work in all areas to ensure the timely completion of the project.
To note, in 2024, Caspi Bitum LLP processed 654,602 tons of oil and produced 242,877 tons of road bitumen. The shortfall in production was due to a decrease in bitumen supply requests from road construction organizations. However, the Aktau Bitumen Plant is ready to operate at maximum capacity throughout the year.
Meanwhile, in addition to the Aktau plant, bitumen in Kazakhstan is also produced by the Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant (PPP – a subsidiary of KazMunayGas) and two other private plants, with a total annual production of about 1 million tons of road bitumen across the country.