Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov has announced a tenfold increase in state funding for geological exploration, with approximately $500 million to be invested over the next three years, as the country moves to unlock what officials describe as one of the world’s most significant untapped mineral resource bases.
Speaking at the plenary session of the Geoscience and Exploration of Central Asia forum — GECA 2026 — in Astana, Bektenov framed geological exploration as a strategic foundation for Kazakhstan’s broader economic modernisation, linking the sector’s development to the country’s newly adopted Constitution and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s reform agenda. The forum brought together representatives of international organisations, the diplomatic corps and both domestic and foreign mining companies.
Kazakhstan currently holds approximately 10,000 registered deposits, with total reserves across key commodities estimated at over 2,300 tonnes of gold, 4.3 billion tonnes of oil, 3.8 trillion cubic metres of gas, 33.5 billion tonnes of coal and 26.7 billion tonnes of iron. A notable recent addition to the country’s resource inventory is the Kuyryktykolskoye rare earth deposit, discovered in 2025, which holds an estimated 800,000 tonnes of cerium, neodymium, yttrium and other rare earth elements.
Bektenov highlighted a series of structural reforms already underway in the geology and subsoil use sector. A unified subsoil use portal has been launched to provide transparent access to licensing services, with a first-come, first-served allocation model drawn from international best practice that has helped attract approximately 280 billion tenge in private investment into geological exploration over the past three years. International reserves reporting standards have been adopted, and the country is transitioning to geophysical mapping at a scale of 1:50,000 to improve the quality of subsurface data available to investors.
Among the longer-term infrastructure priorities announced is the creation of a geology cluster in Astana, bringing together an analytical laboratory, core storage facility and a geological information archive — a hub intended to concentrate technical and human resources and accelerate specialised research. Work is also ongoing to extend the country’s geological and geophysical survey coverage to 2.2 million square kilometres, with current coverage having reached approximately 2.04 million square kilometres.
Discussions at the forum also focused on digital transformation and the integration of artificial intelligence into exploration and subsoil management, with contributions from Kazakhstan’s Minister of Industry and Construction Yersaiyn Nagassayev, Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Mining Industry and Geology Rustam Yusupov and senior geological officials from Tajikistan.
