ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 22. French Air Liquide will implement hydrogen production project on the territory of Kazakhstan's Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant, Trend reports.
This was stated during a meeting between the Minister of Industry and Construction of Kazakhstan Kanat Sharlapayev and representatives of the French company.
The discussion also focused on the most important aspects of the development of investment projects in the petrochemical industry.
Frédéric Despréaux, Vice President of the French concern, raised a number of technical issues that require attention. In turn, the minister expressed his readiness to provide all assistance to accelerate the implementation of this strategic project, emphasizing his commitment to supporting innovative initiatives in the sector.
To note, the customer of the project is Air Liquide Munay Tech Gases LLP, a joint venture between Air Liquide Eastern Europe S.A. and KazMunayGas – Refining and Marketing JSC, where the share of participation is 25 percent from KMG and 75 percent from Air Liquide.
This project will complement the existing hydrogen plant at the Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant, increasing production capacity to 12,500 m³/h of hydrogen.
In addition, Kanat Sharlapayev expressed confidence in the successful implementation of the project and instructed industry departments to intensify work on solving current problems to further promote the initiative.
Meanwhile, France is one of Kazakhstan's largest trading partners in the EU. The volume of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and France amounted to $4.245 billion in 2023. The volume of trade turnover increased by 6.5 percent compared to the same period in 2022 ($3.987 billion).
At the same time, in the structure of trade turnover, exports to France for the above period amounted to $2.949 billion, which is four percent less than from January through December 2022 ($3.071 million).
In addition, imports from France from January through December 2023 increased by 41.4 percent and amounted to $1.296 billion. For 2022, imports amounted to $916.5 million.