After the collapse of the Soviet Union, all eyes were directed to Russia. But if you carefully study the map, you can see that in the same territory there was another large state, occupying the ninth line in the world ranking of the largest states - Kazakhstan.
In two parts of the world
The name was given to the state by the word “Kazakh”, which is of Turkic origin and means the same as its Russian variation “Cossack” - “free man”. Free people had a place to roam, because even of the current more than 2.7 million square kilometers of the country, deserts occupy more than forty percent. And if you count with semi-deserts, then this almost uninhabited territory occupies almost sixty percent of Kazakhstan.
This state is one of the few whose territory is located immediately in two parts of the world - Europe and Asia. Recently, there have been inconsistencies in determining the boundaries of parts of the world. If earlier the border was drawn along the Ural River, now some scientists agree that it needs to be moved further beyond the Ural Mountains. No matter what sources you take, whatever borders you draw between the parts of the world, still the greater part of Kazakhstan lies in Asia, and the smaller - in Europe.
Initially, the country's population was more represented by the Kazakhs themselves. But since the days of the Soviet Union, when there was a massive migration of residents inside the country - the evacuation of the Great Patriotic War, the development of virgin lands - the national composition of this state has acquired diversity. The flow of immigrants grew especially when they discovered significant mineral deposits in Kazakhstan. Moreover, the development of their deposits occurred as the needs of Soviet industry.
Mendeleev's table in the bowels
In terms of geology, Kazakhstan is rich in minerals. In the bowels of this state, almost the entire periodic table is hidden. Of the incomplete hundreds of chemical elements, seventy deposits have been explored. At the same time, production of sixty of them is in full swing. Such an advantageous position of a country with resources is predetermined by the diversity of its geological structure on such a vast territory. Moreover, it was the geological structure that served as the basis for the fact that the mineral resources of Kazakhstan are located almost strictly in the regions of the country. Today, about five hundred deposits are known that contain more than a thousand types of minerals. Unfortunately, the priority areas for the development of the former USSR negatively affected the development of resources in various regions. Therefore, the tremendous reserves of some of Kazakhstan’s resources were not developed in many areas.
Northern Territories
The lands of Northern Kazakhstan are the center of the iron ore industry and serve as a source of raw materials for the production of aluminum and gold. The reserves of magnetite and brown iron ore are estimated at billions of tons. And the mining itself in this region has been ongoing for a long time. Zinc deposits and the largest asbestos deposits in the former Soviet Union are also being developed. In addition to the above, the minerals of Northern Kazakhstan are significant ore deposits with a high content of nickel, cobalt, tin, tantalum and titanium, but they are still under development. The same phrase - pending development - applies to a unique deposit of industrial diamonds. The only good news is that the development of minerals is not frozen, but little by little they begin to be implemented. For example, the development of zinc-rich ores in the Scheimerden deposit has begun.
East country
Minerals of East Kazakhstan are represented primarily by polymetallic ores. It is mainly about lead and zinc, together with which copper is extracted from ore, as well as precious gold and platinum elements. These territories have more than forty percent of Kazakh gold reserves. In addition, the situation is encouraging that large reserves of titanium ores in the Kazakh east are not only explored, but also started to be developed.
Central Kazakhstan
Coal basins in the country are famous mainly for Central Kazakhstan. The minerals here, in addition to solid carbon, are ores with a high content of manganese, tungsten, and molybdenum. The borders of the country's regions are rather arbitrary. The central region is in close contact with other areas, therefore, the reserves of lead and zinc, the main location of which are North and East Kazakhstan, have deposits in the center of the country.
South of Kazakhstan
Southern lands are separated from other regions of the state, even central, by desert. Therefore, they possess unique deposits that are not similar to other parts of Kazakhstan. Deposits of uranium ores in the south of the country are the second largest in the world, which is more than twenty percent of all global reserves. They are developed in the most modern way - by underground leaching. In addition to uranium ores, the south of Kazakhstan is famous for phosphorite deposits.
Western lands
Almost all hydrocarbon reserves are located on the lands of Western Kazakhstan. Moreover, in terms of oil reserves, this country is in the leading dozen world states, and in the top twenty in terms of gas reserves. In addition to hydrocarbons, potassium and boron salts and, of course, chromites are mined in the west of the country.
In world leaders
The diversity of the geological structure has led to the fact that if it comes to Kazakhstan, the minerals of this country are immediately noted: in some areas they occupy leading positions in the world. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that in this state the largest world reserves of ores containing zinc, tungsten, and barite. Second world place for silver, lead and chromite. Kazakhstan is one of the leading five world powers in terms of ore reserves containing copper, molybdenum, gold and fluorite. But if we conduct an economic assessment of the minerals used, the most significant for the state’s economy will be coal and oil.
Coal mining
Initially, the main resource of Kazakhstan was coal. The growth of the famous (thanks to the catch phrase) Karaganda occurred as a result of the need of the young Soviet state for coal. The areas of Central Kazakhstan that were not populated at that time were explored for the presence of coal in the nineteenth century, but the first workers' settlements appeared here only at the beginning of the twentieth. But the Karaganda coal basin began to develop actively in the thirties of the last century, when the country experienced an acute need for fuel and raw materials for the steel industry. After all, the local coal is coking, which is why it is of high quality and is in demand in metallurgy. Therefore, the initial pre-war mining in Kazakhstan was reduced to coal production. During the period of active development of coal mining in the more northern regions, deposits of brown iron ore were discovered. This was the start of the rapid growth of the metallurgical industry of Kazakhstan. To date, 80 coal seams with a thickness of 120 meters and a capacity of 45 billion tons have been discovered in the Karaganda coal basin. Its areas are located in the three central regions of the country. Coal mining is also carried out in the Ekibastuz coal basin.
Hydrocarbons
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world leader in oil and gas production from the bowels of the earth, many post-Soviet countries turned out to be dependent on Russia, because the reserves of these hydrocarbons were distributed unevenly throughout the country. But Kazakhstan was not deprived of them. Minerals containing hydrocarbons were abundant in the newly formed state. The second in the post-Soviet space oil reserves, the third - natural gas. But the peculiar development of the oil and gas industry in the former Union affected the industry in two ways during the independence of Kazakhstan. On the one hand, these are rich deposits. In terms of oil reserves in the bowels of the earth, Kazakhstan is in the leading world group, possessing almost two percent of all explored deposits of this product on the planet, which is about four billion tons. Kazakhstan has slightly less natural gas reserves: in fractional terms of the global amount - about one percent, which is almost two billion cubic meters. But, on the other hand, the emphasis on production of Siberian oil and gas in the Union has led to the fact that this direction in Kazakhstan turned out to be less developed than in the neighboring state.
Ore minerals
Ore minerals of Kazakhstan are widely used. Iron ore reserves are concentrated in the northern lands of the state, where up to eighty-five percent of the country's total reserves are located. The ores of some deposits are so high quality that the iron content in them exceeds half the composition of the ore. But ordinary ores of Kazakh mining contain no more than forty percent of iron.
Ninety-nine percent of chromium deposits are located on the southern spur of the Ural Mountains, which in Kazakhstan are called Mugodzhary. The state shows the second result in the world in terms of chromite production.
Manganese ores of local deposits, the second largest reserves in the CIS, have up to 27% metal content.
Copper mining in the country is carried out in the same deposits (Zhezkazgan, Oryol, Nikolaev) for a long time, which causes their gradual depletion. Therefore, everything possible is being done to introduce new developments in East Kazakhstan. At the same time, searches for copper ores are carried out in the Central and Western regions of the country.
Again, if we talk about Kazakhstan, the minerals of this country containing gold, it is worth noting that the extraction of this precious metal was initially only a passing element in the production of polymer ores. Gold is currently being developed in 16 regions of the country. At the same time, 190 deposits were explored, and Kazakhstan ranks fifth in the world in gold reserves. Now operating gold mining enterprises are provided with gold for the next half century.
Non-metallic minerals
The mineral resources of Kazakhstan are not limited to ores and coal. The state is rich in asbestos, the largest deposits of which are located in the Zhetygarinsky and Zhezkagansky deposits. In addition, the deposits of the south of Mugodzhar are rich in this element, although they are being developed less intensively.
Mineral extraction in Kazakhstan is significantly developed in the direction of extracting phosphorites from the bowels of the earth. The reserves of phosphorus-containing elements in the south of the country are the second largest in the world in terms of volume, and they are unparalleled in the content of the main product.
In addition to these non-metallic elements, unprecedented salt reserves have been discovered in the Caspian lowland of Kazakhstan. Separate saline strata exceed two kilometers.
Summing up all the above, I want to note that the country is rich in various deposits. Minerals of the Republic of Kazakhstan are of high quality. But, unfortunately, their development is not always carried out at the proper level. And the most important for the state economy is the extraction of coal, oil and gas.