ASTANA, Kazakhstan, April 10. The Aktau bitumen plant in Kazakhstan (CASPI BITUM LLP) produced about 29,500 tons of bitumen in the first quarter of 2024, against a plan of 100,000, Trend reports.
According to the CASPI BITUM, the reason for the reduction in production was the lack of applications from road construction organizations, a weak selection of finished products from the plant, and untimely payment to cargo carriers.
As the company noted, in general, the Aktau bitumen plant is ready to operate at maximum productivity throughout the year, taking into account timely shipment. All conditions have been created for this at the enterprise.
With a capacity of 500,000 tons of bitumen per year (50,000 per month), the plant can produce up to 550,000 tons of bitumen at 110 percent productivity.
Meanwhile, the volumes of raw material processing at CASPI BITUM at the end of 2023 amounted to 853,484 tons, or 100.5 percent of the plan. Over the past year, 358,155 tons of road bitumen were produced (100.8 percent of the plan).
The leaders in consumption of road bitumen produced at the plant in 2023 are Almaty Region with 60,913 tons (17 percent), Mangystau Region with 44,025 tons (12 percent), and Jambyl Region with 39,404 tons (11 percent) of the total shipment volume.
Moreover, in October 2023, a project to increase the oil refining capacity of CASPI BITUM to 1.5 million tons per year was included in the list of investment projects of KazMunayGas (a national oil and gas company). Thanks to the modernization of the existing crude oil primary processing unit, it is planned to increase the production of road bitumen at the enterprise from the current 500,000 to 750,000 tons per year.
