Kazakhstan: Agency Proposes Regulating Coal Prices Amid Bogatyr Komir’s Market Dominance

Kazakhstan’s Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (APDC) has proposed introducing state regulation of thermal coal prices due to the dominant position of Bogatyr Komir LLP, which controls more than 70% of the wholesale supply market, Orda.kz reports.

From 2019 to 2024, Bogatyr Komir repeatedly increased the price of coal, in some years — up to 21.5%. In 2023, an antimonopoly investigation was launched against the company on the grounds of setting a monopolistically high price. It was contested in court, but on June 10, 2025, the Supreme Court confirmed the legality of the actions of the antimonopoly authority,APDC stated.

Currently, price regulation applies to electricity and heat production, transmission, and supply in Kazakhstan, but not to coal itself. Rising coal costs — which account for up to 60% of power plant expenses — are pushing up utility tariffs and contributing to financial losses at energy companies.

The proposed regulation is part of the sixth antimonopoly package under discussion in Parliament. If adopted, it would mark the first step toward establishing price controls on a strategically important resource.

Bogatyr Komir, the largest coal miner in Kazakhstan, is jointly owned by Samruk-Energo and Russia’s RUSAL, through Forum Muider BV. Its Bogatyr mine in Yekibastuz is the largest in the CIS and supplies, among others, high-ash coal to Almaty’s CHPP-2.

RUSAL has been linked to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Earlier, Orda.kz reported that power plants owe Bogatyr Komir around three billion tenge. The Energy Ministry pledged to closely monitor debt repayments and coal shipments to avoid heating disruptions this winter.

Original Author: Ruslan Loginov