Nuclear contract: the project of the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan will be completed by May

Russia and Kazakhstan plan to complete the full legal registration of the Balkhash NPP project by May 2026. Nikolay Spassky, Deputy head of Rosatom, informed Izvestia about this following the results of intergovernmental negotiations in Astana. The meeting of the two delegations was the first event during Mikhail Mishustin's visit to the republic. The Russian Prime minister said that the two countries have great potential to launch new joint projects in various fields.

Economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan

The government delegation headed by Mikhail Mishustin began its visit to Kazakhstan. On the first day, March 25, members of the Cabinet of Ministers of both countries held bilateral talks. Key economic projects of Moscow and Astana were discussed at the meeting. In the open part, the Russian Prime Minister thanked for the warm welcome and congratulated Kazakhstan on the new Constitution, which the country adopted following a referendum on March 15. He stressed that Astana is a strategic partner and ally of Moscow.

"Russia is one of Kazakhstan's leading foreign trade partners. We occupy a leading position in terms of direct investment in the national economy. There is great potential for launching new joint projects in various sectors of the economy: energy, industry, transport infrastructure, agriculture, and the digital economy," Mishustin said.

The trade turnover between the two countries has almost reached $30 billion, Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov added at the meeting. Over the past 20 years, Russian entrepreneurs have invested $28 billion in the Kazakh economy, and Astana's contribution amounted to $9 billion. "Russian business is actively operating in Kazakhstan. There are more than 22,000 enterprises with Russian participation, which is almost a third of all companies with foreign participation," Bektenov explained.

As the Russian Prime Minister recalled, in November 2025, Moscow and Astana signed a Declaration on Strategic Partnership and Alliance. At the same time, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev approved a comprehensive program of economic cooperation until 2030. Such steps have led to the fact that over the past year, trade and economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan has significantly deepened, Sergey Margulis, senior lecturer at the Department of International Politics and Foreign Regional Studies at the ION Presidential Academy, told Izvestia.

Of particular importance is the partnership between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which includes Russia and Kazakhstan. There is an indefinite free trade agreement between the members of the association, that is, without additional duties for businesses. Astana is chairing the bodies of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) this year and is developing an initiative on artificial intelligence, which the Russian Federation is ready to support, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said after the talks.

"Positions were expressed regarding the use of technology in our common market," he said.

According to him, an important topic of the meeting was the issue of oil transportation. Kazakhstan exports most of its oil through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which runs through the territory of the Russian Federation, and through the Atyrau–Samara pipeline.

— Kazakhstan has no plans to reduce its oil supply capacity. Plus, we continue to implement a number of other projects in the extractive industry. Russia is, in particular, a buyer of Kazakhstani uranium and metallurgical products, including zinc," Margulis explained.

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This will help the local economy reduce dependence on imported coal and strengthen relations between the two countries.

The project of the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan

One of the main topics at the closed-door talks was the construction of the first Balkhash nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan. The project is being implemented under the leadership of the Russian company Rosatom. Nikolay Spassky, Deputy General Director of the state corporation, who joined the Russian delegation, told Izvestia about this. He explained that it is planned to complete the full legal registration of the project by May 2026.

— We are currently completing the formation of the package. These are the price, the main layout of the project, the terms of the project, the main suppliers, and a lot of other things. A huge responsibility. We really hope to do this in the next two months and complete it by May," Spassky said.

Earlier, the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, said that after the legal registration of the NPP project in 2026, the level of localization and the degree of involvement of Kazakhstani partners would be determined, which would allow naming more precise dates for the plant's commissioning. Exploration work is currently underway on the shores of Lake Ulken, and it is planned to be completed by early 2027.

The project involves the construction of a nuclear power plant based on the VVER-1200 reactor of the 3+ generation, Likhachev said earlier. Reactors of this type are already operating in Russia and abroad — four units in Russia and two in Belarus, the same technology has been chosen by partners in Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh and China.

Before the commissioning of two reactors with a capacity of 1.2 thousand each. The MW will take 9-10 years. However, such a period is worth it, since nuclear reactors at nuclear power plants will operate for about 100 years. Russia's participation in the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan is a very serious step for mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries, Sergey Margulis believes. According to him, Rosatom has once again shown its high competitiveness in the field of nuclear energy, so it is not surprising that the post-Soviet republics choose cooperation with the Russian state corporation.

— Naturally, Russia will be the main supplier of fuel, which will be able to make good money on this, and Kazakhstan will receive additional energy, so the project can only be evaluated on the positive side, — the expert noted.

Initially, it was planned to build a nuclear power plant by 2035, but the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan is interested in launching the first unit in a shorter time — within eight years. This is probably due to the fact that the republic is facing a shortage of electricity. By the end of 2025, it could reach 5.7 billion kWh, the ministry previously reported. In March, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed building not one, but three nuclear power plants, creating a nuclear cluster. Obviously, the Russian Federation, together with Rosatom, will play an important role in this.