“Some 1.5 million samples of different geological material were taken from Kazakhstan over the past 13 years,” the Vice Minister of Industry and New Technologies of Kazakhstan, Nurlan Sauranbayev said at a press conference at the Geology-360 platform held in Astana on March 5.
“Tens of thousands of different samples and a huge amount of geological data are exported from Kazakhstan to the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan and other countries each year,” he said. “Some 1.5 million different samples of geological material have been taken away from Kazakhstan over the past 13 years.”
The situation has arisen by the fact that there are no certified laboratories in Kazakhstan where it would be possible to study the collected geological material, according to Sauranbayev.
“There are several reasons. There is a recession in applied geology (low involvement) which occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The lack of professional staff which in turn is caused by an aging workforce averaging 65 years and low level of specialists training in the field,” the Vice-Minister said.
Recently a memorandum was signed on the establishment of a geological exploration centre in Kazakhstan between Kazgeologiya JSC and Nazarbayev University in Astana for the development of scientific and technical potential of the country.
“The establishment of the geological exploration centre will create a world-class infrastructure in Kazakhstan and scientific, research laboratories. This, in turn will lead to a substantial reduction in cost and time for processing geological materials by conducting analyses in the country,” Sauranbayev said.
The centre will consist of four units, an administrative office, laboratory and analytical areas, headquarters and experimental industrial and experimental block, according to the Vice-Minister.
As reported previously, an innovative -intellectual cluster, a core element of which is a Science Park is being created at the autonomous educational organisation Nazarbayev University. The Science Park will consist of a variety of scientific and technological clusters in the field of geology, ICT, bio-medicine and other topics.
“The Park’s Anchor project is a geological cluster which will include a School of Mining Institute of Earth Sciences as well as the Centre for Geological Exploration of Kazakhstan,” he said.
