Kazakhstan’s Mining Boom Faces a Growing Water Crisis
Equinor and Eneco Sign New Long-Term Gas Supply Deal Eurasianet is an independent news organization that covers news from and about the South Caucasus and Central Asia, providing on-the-ground reporting and critical perspectives on… Kazakhstan’s mining sector is booming just as the country’s water supply is coming under increasing stress from climate change, antiquated infrastructure, and a growing population.
Water supply will be vital to the sector’s long-term success, yet the issue is all too often overlooked by governments and investors, experts say.
“Water scarcity in Central Asiais discussed almost entirely as an agricultural problem … it rarely appears in mining company risk registers,” Vlad Paddack, an analyst at Nightingale Int., a consulting firm, told a panel at the Minex Kazakhstan ’26 forum in Astana in April.
The Kazakh government sought to address the issue by introducing significant revisions to the water code in 2025, but industry insiders say that the success of those changes will hinge on enforcement, which has previously been light.
The mining sector has grown robustly in Kazakhstan over the past few years.
Ore production increased by 7.8 percent and metal production expanded by 6.9 percent in 2024, Kazakhofficials have stated.
Astana hopes to see that growth continue, and the sector has recently attractedmuch attentionfrom Western governments eager to diversify their supply of critical minerals and rare earths.
At the same time, astudypublished this winter found that glacier mass in Central Asia could decline by one-third by 2040, with runoff peaking a decade later.
A recent UN Development Programmereportfound that Kazakhstan could face a water shortage equal to 50 percent of its needs for business and household use by 2040.
Water is vital for mining, especially during the early stages of processing when the ore is separated out from unwanted minerals and dirt.
In water-stressed regions, water can run between 10 and 20 percent of a copper or iron mine’s total costs, according to Paddack.
It is difficult to say exactly how much water the country’s mining sector uses because official water-use statistics are aggregated for the entire industrial sector, said Zauresh Atakhanova, who studies the economics of Kazakhstan’s extractive sectors at Nazarbayev University in Astana.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | ▲ +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | ▲ +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | ▲ +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | ▲ +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | ▼ -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | ▲ +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | ▼ -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | ▲ +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | ▼ -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | ▲ +0.92% |
Price alerts · Industry news
Comments
Post a Comment