Kazakhstan splits the baby on nuclear power agenda
Rosatom has been tapped to build the country's first nuclear power plant. But China National Nuclear Corporation is also poised to get a plant construction contract.
Kazakhstan has made its decision on who will build its first nuclear power plants. And it has chosen to split the baby.
Over the weekend, the Nuclear Energy Agency announced that Russian state-run Rosatom had been picked to lead an international consortium to build the maiden plant, which should appear in Ulken, on the shores of Lake Balkhash, around 2035.
In making its case for this decision, the agency said evaluators had found Rosatom’s proposal to be the most “optimal and advantageous.” No information has been provided about what other companies will be involved in the Rosatom-led consortium.
Kazakhstan’s government is divulging no details about projected construction costs, but it looks like Russia’s offer to provide credit on preferential terms may have proven a decisive factor.
“These funds will be used, among other things, to purchase long-lead items such as the nuclear reactor, steam generators, and main circulation pumps, as well as to carry out construction work,” the Nuclear Energy Agency press service told reporters.
The ultimate cost of building a nuclear power plant has previously been put at around $11 billion or more, an amount that commentators have said Kazakhstan would struggle to raise on its own.
On the same day as the Rosatom announcement, Nuclear Energy Agency chairman Almasadam Satkaliyev had more news to share.
Kazakhstan is to get a second power plant. And that one will likely be built by China.
“We are planning to sign a separate framework agreement with China on cooperation in the nuclear sector. We want to see Chinese technologies used in Kazakhstan for the construction of another nuclear power plant,” Satkaliyev said. “There are not many countries in the world capable of managing the entire nuclear cycle independently. China is unquestionably one of them.”
This dual-track strategy – Russia first, China next – appears to reflect Astana’s efforts to balance its two most powerful neighbours, all while maintaining room for Western involvement in auxiliary roles. Paris-based engineering company Assystem was enlisted to help Kazakhstan assess the rival bids for the Ulken project.
Where this leaves the other companies hoping to get a Kazakhstan contract – Électricité de France (EDF) and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) – is unclear.
What is known so far about Russia’s proposal for the Ulken plant is that it will be based around Rosatom’s VVER-1200 reactor, a type of pressurised water reactor already in use in Russia itself, as well as Belarus and China.
The model belongs to the so-called Generation III+ class, a newer and, on paper, safer family of reactors compared to older models like the ones involved in the Fukushima accident in 2011 and the earlier Chernobyl disaster. Those earlier Generation II reactors still make up the vast majority of nuclear plants operating today.
The plant Rosatom is proposing to build will reportedly include features that do not need electricity or staff intervention to keep reactors cool in the case of a failure. If the plant suffers a major failure, it should be able to keep itself stable using natural air flow and pressure release systems for up to three days.
Sensitivities around the safety of nuclear energy run high in Kazakhstan, which was the site of four decades of nuclear weapons testing in Soviet times.
Painful memories around that legacy made selling the case for nuclear power a particularly difficult challenge. Speaking in early 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev laid it out in stark, existential terms.
“Without clean atomic power, we will lose the whole economy,” he said. “We will lose our regional leadership. We desperately need power. Clean nuclear power.”
He then dismissed opponents of nuclear power as economically illiterate populists.
Critics counter that even the most advanced system is only as safe as the people operating it. In Kazakhstan, other sectors, from mining to conventional power generation, are regularly plagued by accidents stemming from poor maintenance, lax inspections, underinvestment, and weak regulatory oversight.
Speaking last year to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kazakh service, Radio Azattyq, biologist Kaisha Atakhanova, a longtime campaigner against nuclear development, voiced concern specifically about the Rosatom-backed plant’s proposed location.
Atakhanova noted that Lake Balkhash depends on the Ili River, which flows from China, and that “Kazakhstan already faces water shortages, and climate change will only make this worse.”
She also highlighted seismic risks in the area.
“You cannot build a nuclear plant on fault lines,” Atakhanova said.
The government appears to believe, however, that last year’s overwhelming “yes” vote in a referendum on nuclear power has put the environmental debate to rest.
There may be more lingering concerns about the geopolitical optics of awarding such an important strategic role to Russia in securing Kazakhstan’s future energy balance.
Officials have tried to get out in front of potential criticism by signalling that they are aware of how the decision might be perceived internationally.
“The decision to select Rosatom… is considered final in the current process for the first nuclear power plant,” the Nuclear Energy Agency said. “The choice was not political; it reflects Kazakhstan’s energy security and development interests.”
The agency also emphasised that Rosatom “is not included in any sanctions lists.”
Bringing in China to develop a second nuclear plant (the location of which has yet to be confirmed) appears to be Kazakhstan’s attempt to avoid putting all its eggs in one basket.
The Chinese proposal looks strikingly appealing on both technical and financial grounds, raising the question of why Beijing was not selected to build the first plant in Ulken, and whether Astana harbours any misgivings it is not ready to publicly acknowledge.
In an interview with Kursiv in 2024, Li Yudong, deputy head of China National Nuclear Corporation’s Central and Eastern Europe office, said China could build a 1.2-gigawatt reactor in Kazakhstan for $2.8 billion, with a construction timeline of just five years. Like the Russian design, the Chinese proposal is also based on so-called Generation III reactor technology.
Extrapolating from that, the cost of a full two-block, 2.4 GW plant would be around $5.6 billion. That is nearly half the cost of what is being mooted for the Russian-built alternative.
It is possible that Li was indulging in a bit of salesman’s hyperbole. But if his timeline is even close to accurate, there is a plausible scenario in which the Chinese-built plant comes online before the one at Ulken.
Li also suggested CNNC would be open to a build-operate-transfer model, which would ease Kazakhstan’s financing burden. He framed the Chinese offer as part of a broader political vision.
“We’re not just friends. We’re like brothers who want to draw even closer,” he said.