The economy of Kazakhstan is the largest economy in Central Asia. Kazakhstan is a growing economic power with a strong resource base. It is important to world energy markets because it has significant oil and natural gas reserves. The country has 3% percent of the world’s raw materials and a natural resource base of over $300,000 per capita, which is among the highest in the world.
Oil plays a big role in Kazakhstan. With nearly 40 billion barrels in reserves and 2% of global production, the country has the world’s ninth largest proven reserves and is among the 20 largest oil producers.
It has 4% of the global iron reserves, 8% percent of the world’s zinc reserves and 4% of the world’s chrome reserves.
Kazakhstan's strategic aspiration is to become a modern, diversified economy with a high value added and high-tech component, well integrated in to the global economy.
Energy sector is viewed as a good basis to achieve this goal!
Oil and gas is the leading economic sector.
Oil and gas area occupy the territory about 1,7 million sq. km (approximately 62 % of territory of Kazakhstan). There are 172 oil fields and 7 main gas fields. In Kazakhstan the proved reserves is near 2,8 billion tons of oil and 1,8 bln. cubic meters of gas.
Kazakhstan is estimated to have around 30 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, which place it eleventh in the world.
Example: in 2006, Kazakhstan produced 54 million tons of crude oil and 10.5 million tons of gas condensate, which makes Kazakhstan eighteenth-largest oil producer in the world.
In 2011, oil exports amounted to 69.61 million tones through the main oil pipelines. In money terms, oil exports were equal to US$ 55.2 billion, accounting for 62.5% of the total exports of Kazakhstan.
The volume of gas exports from Kazakhstan in 2011 amounted to 8.15 billion cubic meters.
Kazakhstan has the potential to be a world-class oil exporter in the medium term.
The main production sites are the Tengiz field, located on the northeast shores of the Caspian, and the Karachaganak field, located inland near to Russian border. In future Kazakh oil production will also rely on the Kashagan field, the largest oil field outside the Middle East, and the Kurmangazy field in Northern Kazakhstan. 76% of Kazakhstan's oil and gas production and remaining reserves are concentrated in these three oil fields .
KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan's national oil company, has played an increasingly important role in the country's oil and gas sector.
According to the president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan is planning to increase its oil production up to 3.5 million barrels (560,000 m3) of oil a day, of which 3 million will go to export. This will lift Kazakhstan into the ranks of the world's top 10 oil-producing nations.
Mining
The Republic of Kazakhstan is one of the world's best-endowed states, possessing world-class deposits of minerals and raw materials.
It is the leading country in the world for uranium production volumes, with 35% of global production, and it has the world's second biggest uranium reserves after Australia.
Kazakhstan hold 1/3 of the world’s chromium and manganese deposits.
This sector provides 30% of Kazakhstan's export earnings, 16% of GDP, and 19% of industrial employment.
The following chart illustrates the immensity of Kazakhstan's mineral reserves compared to other major mineral suppliers:
Kazakhstan's Mineral Reserves
(countries in parentheses represent countries with similar reserves of the specified metal)
! One of key problems of a mining and smelting complex of Kazakhstan is - Low technological level of production. Our mining companies in comparison with leading foreign firms allows losses of ore more than 8-10 %, and labor productivity on all repartitions are lower in 1,5-2 times.

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