‘Geologically blessed’: How to build a battery without China

“We very often confuse availability with reliability,” says Kazakhstan’s minister for industry.

According to a study by the Brookings Institution, in 2023, China was producing about 60% of the world’s rare earth elements.

During the Covid pandemic, we witnessed the problems with relying on one single territory for supply and as the green transition spurs on, the need for them is only increasing.

In this episode of The Big Question, we learn how a strategic tie-up with Kazakhstan could be the key to Europe’s green transition. Kanat Sharlapaev, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Industry and Construction, tells Hannah Brown more.

What is ‘friendshoring’?

When Europe began moving its industry away from the continent in a decades’ long trend, it “lost competencies and engineering capabilities to actually produce something that is essentially invaluable to their economies,” Kanat explained.

After disruption to supply and the ensuing chip shortages, the new trend of “friendshoring” arose – a strategy which shifts production to geopolitical allies – to ensure a secure supply, without focusing on price or availability.

So if Europe wants to reduce its reliance on China, is Kazakhstan, amongst others, a key alliance to build?

Kazakhstan has already proved itself to be a team player in stabilising Europe’s energy supply and is Germany’s fourth largest energy trading partner.

And if we’re thinking about shipping costs and emissions, Kazakhstan is geographically closer than China or the other big players in South America.

Is Kazakhstan mineral rich?

“Either you’re geologically blessed or not,” Kanat mused. And, fortunately for Kazakhstan, it’s blessed.

Of the 30 elements on the EU’s critical raw minerals (CRM) list, Kazakhstan has supplies of 17 or 18 of them.

It already has 20% of the market share of space grade titanium, 10% of the manganese sulphate market, 30% of the global supply of beryllium and around 17% of the global rhenium supply.

The country’s big focus now is developing its processing capacities further to deepen the value chain within the country.

Kazakhstan is the number 11 producer of copper in the world (Chile is number one, producing around 27% of the global supply.)

“If we extracted that concentrate and then exported it abroad, some value will be lost and retained by the country who is processing our concentrate,” Kanat told Euronews.

For this reason, the country’s long-term vision for the mining industry is to increase its processing power and in turn, create more jobs in regional economies.

Kazakhstan’s GDP is around $270bn (€249bn), according to Kanat, with the mining sector contributing between 12% and 15% of that. And Kanat is confident that the figure will grow.

Despite being the ninth largest country on the planet, Kazakhstan has a population of only around 20 million. Just over 1% of the people of Kazakhstan are employed in the mining industry.

“If you go to an average mining company anywhere around the globe, you’d probably find an expatriate population that’s operating those mining sites globally, not in Kazakhstan. 99% of our workforce is actually our local people,” Kanat explained.

“There’s universities who prepare them in Kazakhstan. And that human capital base enables a lot of companies to start operating a lot quicker.”

The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.

Watch the video above for the full conversation with Kazakhstan’s Minister of industry and construction.

Video editor • Joanna Adhem