Japan's Marubeni company has confirmed that it will invest about USD 500m in modernising the Atyrau Oil Refinery in Western Kazakhstan, said the head of the national oil company KazakhOil, Nurlan Kapparov, to journalists on Tuesday, 20 October. Marubeni is part of a Japanese consortium that signed oil and construction deals worth USD 2bn with the Kazakh government in September. According to Kapparov, Marubeni will also participate in the construction of a petrochemical plant and a plant to produce barges (both will be located in Western Kazakhstan). The company will start by carrying out feasibility studies for the three projects. (Interfax & Reuters)

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The JSC Atyrau Oil Refinery has announced that it will hold an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on 14 December 1998 in Atyrau, Western Kazakhstan. The purpose of the meeting is to make amendments to the company's charter, to elect new governing bodies, to approve remuneration for the Board of Directors, and to make preparations for the next annual general shareholders' meeting. (Kazakhstanskaya Pravda)

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The JV Tengizchevroil is currently completing the construction of the first phase of production facilities to increase oil production to 210,000 bpd (26,500 tonnes per day). The second phase of the construction is planned to be finished in mid-2000 and the oil output will then reach 253,000 bpd (31,700 tonnes per day). By 2010, the production will total 700,000 bpd. The recoverable reserves at the Tengiz deposit are estimated at 6-9 billion barrels. (Kazakhstanskaya Pravda)

Kazakhmys, Kazakhstan's largest copper producer, intends to produce 347,000 tonnes of blister and 356,000 tonnes of refined copper in 1998. At present, all of Kazakhmys' enterprises are operating at their full capacities, the corporation's press service told Interfax. Over the first 9 months of 1998, Kazakhmys produced 246,000 tonnes of blister and 239,700 tonnes of refined copper. According to the press service, production decreased insignificantly last summer due to a small drop in the demand for copper. Despite this, Kazakhmys hopes to achieve the above planned outputs. It has not had any major problems apart from the fact that copper prices have fallen recently from USD 3,500 to USD 1,600 per tonne. The corporation is 40%-owned by South Korea's Samsung Corp who invested USD 35m in revamping and purchasing equipment for Kazakhmys in the first 9 months of this year. (Interfax)

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The transnational company Kazchrome put into operation a concentrating factory last week. The factory has the capacity of producing 50,000 tonnes of manganese concentrate per year. Manganese is used to make high quality ferroalloys which are used in high tech industries and medicine. At present, the factory is capable of producing 4,000 tonnes of manganese concentrate per year. Kazchrome is planning to continue the reconstruction of major facilities at the factory which will require USD 2m in investment. (Reuters)

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Ispat-Karmet, Kazakhstan's giant steel producer in Central Kazakhstan, will have produced 2.8 million tonnes of steel by the end of the year, which is 1.3 million tonnes less than in 1997. This information was released to Interfax by the company's commercial and administrative director, Adil Vadalivala. He said that the reduction would not, however, affect the company's profit as the company has improved the quality of its steel this year, thereby increasing the price of the steel to USD 400 per tonne from USD 180 last year. Presently, the company sends 11% of its metal products to the CIS, and the rest goes to 59 countries world-wide. Mr. Vadalivala said that due to the economic crisis in the region, Ispat-Karmet would give up Southeast Asia's markets in the near future and switch to African and American markets. Before 2001, the company plans to invest USD 533m in modernisation through loans provided by the EBRD and IFC. (Interfax)

Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan's largest private bank, will conduct an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on 16 November 1998. The shareholders will discuss the financial statement put forward by the bank's management for the first 9 months of 1998. Other issues on the agenda include opening a branch of the bank in Almaty, selling shares in the KZI-Bank, and the transformation of the investment bank Global Kazkommerts. (Reuters)