Development of the US$177M project has been ongoing since 2022 and will enable Kazakhstan to become one of the top three ferrosilicon producers (by nominal capacity).

On 20 November, a new ferrosilicon plant, EkibastuzFerroAlloys, one of the largest in the country, was officially opened in Ekibastuz (Pavlodar Region, Republic of Kazakhstan).

The plant is equipped with four ore-thermal electric furnaces, each with a capacity of 94.5MVA, whilst ferrosilicon (75% Si) capacity will total 240ktpy. It is reported that the plant has signed a contract with an electricity supplier on preferential terms.

According to insiders, the project is affiliated with investors from another ferrosilicon producer in Kazakhstan, YDD Corporation, which has a similar capacity and has been operating since 2019.

In the short term, the country's total alloy production is not expected to change significantly, as the new enterprise has yet to reach stable capacity utilisation, while YDD, according to media reports, is planning to temporarily halt production in the coming months amid unfavourable market conditions.

Based on annualised trade, Project Blue estimates that ferrosilicon exports from Kazakhstan will amount to approximately 90kt in 2025, down 16% y-o-y. The largest markets were the EU (46%), Japan (34%) and the USA (2%). Japan's share grew by 11% in 2025, whilst the EU's share remained unchanged. By comparison, the USA’s share fell fourfold.

According to Project Blue, an even greater shift in Kazakhstan's export structure, in favour of Japan and other Asian countries, is expected in the future. In March 2025, the US Department of Commerce announced its final affirmative determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into ferrosilicon imports from Kazakhstan, among other countries.

The duties imposed have largely closed the US market to Kazakh ferrosilicon. In turn, on 18 November 2025, the EU introduced a three-year safeguard measure that combines tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) with out-of-quota variable duties.

Under these measures, the quota for duty-free ferrosilicon imports from Kazakhstan will be approximately 32ktpy, which is 30% less than the average volume in 2021-2025.