Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Director General Alexey Likhachev said the plant would employ VVER-1200 Generation 3+ reactors, a technology developed in Russia and used both domestically and abroad. File
| Photo Credit: AP
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has been tapped to lead an international consortium to build the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country’s atomic energy agency said on Saturday (June 14, 2025).
Other proposals came from the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation, as well as French and South Korean companies.
“We welcome Kazakhstan’s decision to start the nuclear power plant construction project,” Rosatom’s chief executive officer Alexei Likhachev said in a statement posted on Saturday (June 14, 2025) to the company’s Telegram channel.
“The result will be the construction of a nuclear power plant based on the most advanced and efficient design in the world, which is based on Russian technology.”
It was not immediately clear which other companies would participate in the Rosatom-led consortium, nor the cost and timeline of Rosatom’s proposal.
Mr. Likhachev said the plant would employ VVER-1200 Generation 3+ reactors, a technology developed in Russia and used both domestically and abroad.
The two-reactor plant will be built in the village of Ulken, about 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Almaty, the commercial capital. Kazakhstan plans to have 2.4 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2035.
The oil- and gas-rich nation of 20 million has not had any nuclear power generation capacity since 1999, when the BN-350 reactor on the shores of the Caspian Sea was decommissioned.
The Kazakh atomic energy agency, established this March, said it had reviewed various proposals for reactor technologies and assessed them based on nuclear power plant safety, personnel training and other criteria.
The agency “determined that the most optimal and advantageous proposals for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan were those received from the Russian company Rosatom,” it said.
“Currently, in accordance with Rosatom’s proposals, work has begun on the issue of attracting state export financing from the Russian Federation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Kazakhstan in November and discussed boosting energy and industry ties with the country, which exports most of its oil through Russia but is exploring alternatives.
In an article for the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper, Mr. Putin wrote that Rosatom, already involved in some projects in Kazakhstan, “is ready for new large-scale projects”.
In October, Kazakhstan voted in a referendum in favour of constructing its first nuclear power plant. The plan, backed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, faced criticism from some Kazakhs concerned by the involvement of a neighbour that has invaded another, Ukraine.
Kazakhstan is one of the world’s biggest uranium producers but currently relies mostly on coal-powered plants for its electricity, supplemented by some hydroelectric plants and the growing renewable energy sector.
Rosatom, created by a presidential decree in 2007, says it is the only company in the world that has all technologies of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining and nuclear research to building, fuelling and running nuclear power plants.
Published – June 15, 2025 01:04 am IST
