On March 16, Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev visited Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC) plant undertaken by NFC in Pavlodar to hear production report. Mr. Nazarbayev was interested in the overall flue gas and dust cleaning system equipped in the plant. Regarding good air quality as one of the necessities for citizens’ health, he expected this system to become an available alternative of current European equipment adopted in domestic industries if it meets the country’s environmental standard.

Mr. Nazarbayev shared the significance of this CPC plant with Mr. Wang Hongqian, “the plant  recycles the country’s green coke into CPC, extending the production chain from petroleum refining to metallurgical industry, and moreover, it obviates Kazakhstan’s dependance on CPC import.” Mr. Wang replied with gratitude and reported NFC’s further participation in the new phase of KAS aluminum smelter in Pavlodar as EPC contractor besides its 6 projects being undertaken in Kazakhstan. Dr. Alexander Machkevitch, chairman of ERG, added that the cooperation with NFC would not be limited in aluminum smelter and the two parties have already discussed the cooperation details on supporting power plant.

Mr. Nazarbayev encouraged the participants from both Kazakhstan and China, “during my state visit to China, President Xi Jinping and I made the plan to build 50 projects within the framework of production capacity cooperation in Kazakhstan. I hope you can make new contribution to this bilateral cooperation with advanced technology and first-class equipment.” Finally, he shook hands with Mr. Wang and NFC vice-president Qin Junman and said “thank you” in Chinese.

The 280kta CPC plant in Pavlodar is a EPC project undertaken by NFC with a total contract volume of USD 81 million and all core elements are from China. As a key state project in Kazakhstan and a capacity cooperation project under Belt-and-Road initiative, the project began to construct in 2014 and put into production at the end of 2015.