Metal-rich Kazakhstan seeks niche in battery supply chain By Reuters

((This September 13 has been corrected to fix the minister’s surname throughout, to Sharlapaev from Sharlapaev))

By Olzhas Auyezov and Eric Onstad

ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakhstan is aiming to increase production of metals needed for electric vehicle (EV) batteries and is issuing hundreds of new exploration licenses to attract new investment in the sector, the country’s industry minister told Reuters. The former Soviet republic is promoting itself as a reliable supplier of most of the critical materials outlined by the European Union, at a time when Russia has threatened to cut exports and China is tightening its grip on rare earths. Kazakhstan has signed agreements with the European Union and the United Kingdom on the supply of critical minerals.

“People know that Kazakhstan is very reliable … We have been supplying the markets for a very long time,” Industry Minister Kanat Sharlapaev said in an interview this week. The Central Asian nation, the world’s ninth-largest by plants but sparsely populated, has deposits of 90 percent of the elements on the periodic table and is already a significant exporter of alloys, gold and .The country wants to gain market share in battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel and graphite amid rising demand for the materials, Sharlapaev said. Kazakhstan already mines manganese, but last year launched manganese sulfate processing and aims to eventually capture 10 percent of the global market for the battery material. It also supplies phosphates for fertilizers and aims to process the material needed for LFP (lithium ferrophosphate) batteries, which are growing in popularity, he added.

“Building scalable processing of battery-grade metals is something we want to scale up,” said Sharlapaev, a former banker at Citigroup.

“We already have production facilities, it’s just a matter of expanding the range of those materials.”

THE RUSSIAN THREAT

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Moscow should consider limiting exports of uranium, titanium, nickel and possibly other commodities in retaliation for Western sanctions.

Kazakhstan is a major global supplier of both uranium and titanium. It also holds 2% of the world’s nickel reserves, but has, for now, a negligible share of its global production. The country has also not yet mined deposits of lithium, another key metal, but exploration is underway.

To speed up exploration and development, the cabinet has simplified procedures for exploration licenses and moved them online, he said.

That brought the number of licenses issued so far this year to 487, up from 397 for all of 2023, according to ministry data. Major mining companies involved in exploration in Kazakhstan include BHP, Rio Tinto (NYSE: ), First Quantum Minerals (OTC: ), Fortescue and Teck Resources (NYSE: ).

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced last month that it had bought a stake in a graphite exploration firm in Kazakhstan. Although Kazakhstan is a member of the Russian-led economic and security blocs, it has maintained its neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, has pledged to abide by Western sanctions against Moscow, and is actively participating in the development of cargo transit routes that bypass Russia.