As a former prime minister, USAID and billionaires are associated with the Koksu HPP

April is in the yard, snow and glaciers are melting in the mountains, and mountain rivers are getting fuller. Including the Koksu River, on which a cascade of hydroelectric power stations is currently being built. None of which, however, has not yet worked. And while the Koksu River flows along its natural channel, Orda.kz found out who else was involved in the construction of this cascade: 

In general, this publication was supposed to be timed to coincide with the completion of the construction of the first hydroelectric power station on the Koksu—Verkhne-Talaptinskaya River. In any case, during communication with journalists, representatives of the developer named April 2025 as the deadline for completion. But, as we were told in the Department of Energy and Housing and Communal Services of the Zhetysu region, they do not know anything about the completion of construction, much less the launch of the Verkhe-Talptinskaya HPP. 

In total, as we wrote earlier, it is planned to build a cascade of either seven or 10 power plants on the Koksu River. We have not been able to find the exact figure yet. They could not immediately name her in the Department of energy and housing and Communal Services of the Zhetysu region. And in general, they suggested that other hydroelectric power stations, except Verkhne-Talaptiskaya, may not appear on the river. Although at least two more — Rudnichnaya-1 and Rudnichnaya-2 — are already under construction. Orda.kz has repeatedly written about the scandalous situation around them.

Program, concept, plan

For the first time, potential HPPs on the Koksu River are mentioned in the Network in a document dated 1999! In the “Program for the development of the electric power industry until 2030”. On April 9, she turned exactly 26 years old. The program includes power plants Kyzylbulakskaya, Bodarevskaya, Kyzylkungeyskaya HPP and Toktyshak.

As can be seen from the plans, these power plants were going to be built before 2020. But none of them in the end is not.

In another document that we found on the Web, only the Kyzylbulak HPP remained from the 1999 list, but two Mine ones were added. This is already the “Concept for the development of the fuel and energy complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030”, published in 2014 and signed by Karim Massimov, who then held the post of Prime Minister for the second time.

According to the concept, these three HPPs should be built before 2030. As you know, two of them are actually being built by EnergoBildsErvice, a subsidiary of KAZ Minerals.

And, finally, the third document, which refers to the Koksu HPP, is the “Development Plan of the hydropower industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2020-2030”. It was signed no longer by the Prime Minister, then just by Deputy Prime Minister, and now First Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar and then Minister of Energy, and now Ambassador to Turkmenistan Nurlan Nogaev.

In this regard, there is a huge list of power plants on different rivers of Kazakhstan. Including eight on Coke. However, it was not difficult to get confused in the way they were spelled out, because there were two hydroelectric power stations Talapty, Kyzylbulak, Kyzylkungey and two simply without a name. But not only the deadlines were indicated, but also the specific companies that these HPPs were supposed to build. That’s what we paid attention to.

By the way, the construction of hydroelectric power plants in Kazakhstan, including small ones, was included in the USAID regional program “Energy of the Future”. In the same 2020, the American agency and the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan even issued a joint guide for investors.

Billionaires and MPs

But back to the list of investors sample 2020. We immediately excluded two companies from it, which we wrote about earlier — this is the aforementioned EnergoBildsErvice and Bekzat LLP, whose successor was Verkhne-Talaptinskaya HPP LLP.

Of the new ones, we will start with Arai Oil LLP, since the least is known about it. This is an Almaty company, which, according to the plan, was to build two HPPs with a capacity of 100 and 150 megawatts at Koksu and invest almost 200 million tenge in it.

In addition, Arai Oil is listed as the executor of a hydroelectric power station on the Tentek River with a capacity of 500 megawatts and a cost of 106 million.

The company has existed since 2004, and from 2009 to 2018 it belonged to three brothers — Nurlan, Yerlan and Akhan Abdrakhmanov. Since 2018, only Yerlan Abdrakhmanov has been listed as both owner and founder. Unfortunately, we could not find any information about these people. The name of their company coincides with the Zhambyl LLP “Arai Oil”, to which “Kazavtozhol” transferred toll roads to management. But this is pure coincidence — we checked.

But we have a question about the Talapta hydroelectric power station, because there is some confusion with it. In the 2020 plan, its capacity is listed at 150 MW. In 2023, Arai Oil published a statement of the planned activities, which states plans for the construction of a cascade of hydroelectric power stations: Kyzylbulak and two Talapty.

And in October 2024, Eskeldinskaya HPP LLP published its statement on the planned activities, and also on the construction of the Talaptinskaya HPP. Only now with a capacity of 16.6 MW. How many HPPs were planned to eventually be put on Coke in the vicinity of the village of Talapty? We suspect that there is no answer to this question.

By the way, the composition of the founders of Eskeldinskaya HPP is the same as that of Verkhne-Talaptinskaya HPP LLP. And, as we wrote earlier, some of them may be related to the “Eurasian Group”.

The next contractor for the construction of hydroelectric power plants in the 2020 plan is an organization with the high—profile name LLP “National Energy Company “Zharyk Energy””. In 2020, she was listed as an executor for the construction of a cascade of hydroelectric power plants with a capacity of 37.2 MW with investments of 14.6 million tenge.

What’s strange about this company? At least the status of “national”. Such national companies as KazMunaiGas, Air Astana and others have either the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, or some agency, or the Samruk-Kazyna Fund among the founders. And at the LLP “NEC “Zharyk Energy” with its “headquarters” in the village of Koksu, the founder and head is 29-year-old Sanzhar Arystanbekuly.

He has been heading this company since 2023. What do we know about him? The fact that he still has an IP, and that he is listed as the head of Zhetysu Eco Product LLP.

The latter is owned by 42-year-old Madi Meirbekov. This is a representative of a fairly well-known family in the field of Zhetysu. His late father Maralbek Meirbekov headed the health department of Almaty region for a long time. And her mother, Rimma Salykova, has been a deputy in the maslikhat for many years — first in the Almaty region, and after the division into two regions — in the Zhetysu region. Even on the website of the regional maslikhat, she is listed as the director of the Almaty Paints and varnish factory. But, according to open sources, her second son Saken Meirbekov owns it, and her daughter—in-law, Layla Meirbekova, is listed as the head.

But let’s get back to the NEC Zharyk Energy.” In 2020, the founder of the “national company” was another person — Nurzhan Dzhanabayev. Now he is listed as the owner of the sole proprietor and the first manager in two LLP: a certain Bigcart from the entertainment industry and in the “Construction company ATTM Group”, including specializing in government orders. Judging by the public procurement website, only in 2025 ATTM Group won contracts worth over 1.5 billion tenge. It is also remarkable for the fact that over the past four years at least five top managers have been replaced there. And Dzhanabaev was just one of many.

And in the end, two more companies from the 2020 plan. Two because they are connected by one person.

The joint venture KazKorEK is listed as an investor in the construction of the Kyzylbulak hydroelectric power station for 40 MW in the document. It is indicated in parentheses that it is made up of the Korean state-owned enterprise KOSEP and the Kazakhstan corporation “Zhersu”.

To be more precise, the Zhersu Investment and Industrial Corporation. As Forbes magazine wrote in 2021, Zhersu and KOSEP signed a memorandum on the construction of the Kyzylbulak HPP back in 2012.

The owner of IPK Zhersu, at least until 2021, was called billionaire Baurzhan Ospanov — No. 66 in the list of the richest people in Kazakhstan in 2024, former vice-president of the Kazakhstan Boxing Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 2016, it was even written about him that he gave an apartment to the future three-time world champion Nazym Kyzaybai.

In 2023, the same Forbes already called Ilyas Zhananov the chairman of the board of IPK Zhersu. He is also listed as the head of Zhersu Corp LLP registered in 2024, the founder of which is a certain Zhanar Tolegenova. Zhananov is listed in the open data as the founder of five more companies.

And Baurzhan Ospanov, according to the official biography, is listed as the chairman of the Supervisory Board of IPK Zhersu. He was also called the owner of the companies Zhersu Power and Zhersu Metal, but according to open data, as of April 2025, Baurzhan Ospanov is not listed in the founders of companies with the word Zhersu at all. The list of companies he officially owns looks like this:

Among them, you can also notice Koksu Hydro, which under the name “Koksu Hydro” is also mentioned in the hydropower plan of 2020. She is listed as the executor of the construction of another Kyzylbulak HPP with a capacity of 53 MW.

And, perhaps, it was for her that Koksu Hydro, together with Qamqor Energy LLP, won the renewable energy auction for the construction of hydroelectric power stations. It was held in November 2024 by the Kazakh electricity market operator JSC KOREM. In any case, the capacity of the Koksu Hydro and Qamqor Energy project is the same — 53 MW. But whether it really is the Kyzylbulak HPP, it is impossible to say for sure. Because specific projects are not indicated in the auction results. You can guess only if the name of the hydroelectric power station and the auction participant match. By the way, the observers at the auctions were representatives of KOREM itself, the Ministry of Energy and USAID.

And just as a coincidence: the names of the potential hydroelectric power stations of Talapty and Kyzylbulak coincide with the names of archaeological sites — Kyzylbulak-IV and Talapty-I. They are mentioned in the monograph of archaeologist Alexander Goryachev “On the structure of settlements of the Late Bronze Age Zhetysu”, published in 2018.

Igor Ulitin (Orda.kz )