ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 27. This year, KazMunayGas plans to pay a record dividend of 350 billion tenge ($700 million) for the year 2024, said Kurmangazy Iskaziev, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of KazMunayGas (KMG), during an extended meeting of the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, Trend reports.
According to Iskaziev, in 2024, KazMunayGas extracted 23.8 million tons of oil, which is 300,000 tons more than the previous year.
"Geological exploration has always been and remains a key area of KMG's operations. As of January 1, 2025, the remaining recoverable reserves of oil and condensate amount to 767 million tons. In line with the study of the potential of deep-lying rocks, exploration drilling was started last year under the Turgai Paleozoic project in the Kyzylorda region, the Karaton Podsolovoy project in the Atyrau region, as well as in the Taysoygan fields in the Atyrau region and Karazhar in the Aktobe region," said Iskaziev.
Iskaziev also added that, to implement promising projects, external investments are being attracted. This year, contracts are expected to be signed with strategic partners: Zhylyoi (CNOOC), Bolashak (Karamarjan Group), Berezovsky (Sinopec), and Mugodzhary (Shell, Chevron). By the end of the year, drilling is planned to begin on the North Ozen and Bolashak projects.
"A Program for Technological Challenges has been developed, which involves using enhanced oil recovery methods with an individual approach to each field. As a result, an additional 418,000 tons of oil have been produced, and in 2025, this figure is planned to increase to 519,000 tons," he emphasized.
In 2024, successful projects for the rehabilitation of the Uzen and Karaman Dybas fields were implemented, which allowed an additional 158,000 tons of oil to be produced.
In 2024, the first phase of development of the Rozhkovskoye gas condensate field in the Western Kazakhstan region was completed with a design capacity of 500 million cubic meters of gas per year. Work continues on the development of the gas deposit at the Western Prorva field. In June 2025, the launch of the first startup complex is planned, which will provide an additional 150 million cubic meters of gas per year. Drilling and well development is planned for the East Urykh Tau and Central Urykh Tau fields in Kazakhstan.
Construction work has begun on the expansion project for the bitumen plant in Aktau, Caspi Bitum, from 500,000 to 750,000 tons, with completion scheduled for April 2025. Preliminary construction work has begun for a new gas processing plant in Zhanaozen with a capacity of 900 million cubic meters. Last year, preliminary construction work began on the largest polyethylene production plant with a capacity of 1.25 million tons. Work is also underway on two more oil and gas chemical projects: polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and urea.
"Total investments in these projects will exceed $13 billion by 2030, creating about 15,000 jobs during the construction phase and 2000 permanent jobs," concluded Iskaziev.
KazMunayGas accounts for 26 percent of all oil production in Kazakhstan, 56 percent of transportation, and 80 percent of processing.
To note, previously it was reported that JSC "Embamunaigas" has begun work to expand infrastructure for the development of gas reserves at the Western Prorva field in Kazakhstan. The project will be implemented in three stages. In June 2025, the launch of the first start-up complex is planned, which will increase oil production to 45 thousand tons per year and gas production to 160 million cubic meters. The second and third stages are scheduled for 2026-2027.