The only Soviet chemical warfare (CW) facility on Kazakhstani territory was the dual-purpose chemical complex in the city of Pavlodar (northern Kazakhstan), though according to some unconfirmed reports, Kazakhstan also housed two other former soviet CW-related facilities: a production plant in the city of Zhambul and storage barracks on the Ili River (complete information on these facilities is not available).
Soviet authorities began construction of the Pavlodar plant in 1965. During the Soviet period, the plant was under the authority of the Soviet Ministry of Chemical Industry. The plant was a dual-purpose facility including both civilian and military production lines, though the military nature of the plant was strictly classified until 1987, when the Soviet government committed itself to abandon production of the chemical weapons. Some of the buildings primarily designed for chemical weapons production were either destroyed or put under conversion efforts in 1987. However, the construction of the other facilities designed for civilian production continued until 1992.
During the Soviet period, the plant included numerous buildings designed for civilian and military production. There were about six main military-related facilities at the site, which were designated to produce CW agents, including basic chemicals manufacturing, laboratory testing, and filling of agents into military munitions. These facilities were never put into operation; nevertheless, the construction of most of the buildings was not completed by 1987, when the Soviet government halted the CW program. The six military-related facilities at the site include:
1. A plant designed to manufacture phosphorus trichloride, the basic starting material for the synthesis of nerve agents;
2. A plant designed to manufacture intermediate CW chemicals. This building was equipped with corrosion-resistant chemical reactors lined with silver or made of high-nickel steel, which is needed for the synthesis of nerve agent components requiring the use of highly corrosive chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid and hydrogen fluoride; In 1992, silver linings were removed from the reactors and shipped to Russia; high-nickel steel reactors remained.
3. A plant for manufacturing the final CW agents, which was not completed when the construction was halted in 1987;
4. Laboratory buildings for testing CW agents on laboratory animals, which were not completed;
5. A plant designed for operations with supertoxic CW agent products, which was destroyed in 1987;
6. A building for filling chemical munitions, which had four meter thick walls reinforced with 16 internal columns to contain accidents with high explosives. Military equipment was not installed in this building when the construction was halted in 1987.
Other buildings at the site included warehouses for storage of chlorine, support facilities, and an incinerator for the elimination of chemical waste.
The main purpose for constructing the Pavlodar plant was to substitute CW production at the two older Soviet chemical production plants of Russia—Novocheboksarsk and Volgograd. According to Pavlodar officials, reportedly the plant was intended to manufacture six types of the latest 1980s-generation binary CW agents. A former Soviet chemist, Vil S. Mirzayanov, who worked for more than 25 years in the Soviet CW program, claimed in 1991 that about 200 scientists and engineers were involved in the development of this new type of binary agents, which had the secret codename Novichok (newcomer). Reportedly, the Novichok agents were five to ten times more potent than the most toxic V-type agents. However, the Pavlodar facility never produced those agents.
As mentioned earlier, the Pavlodar facility also included several civilian production facilities, which in fact served as a cover for military production. Civilian chemicals produced at the facility included caustic soda, chlorine, sodium hypochlorite, ammonium chloride, lubricating oil additives, flotation agents, antifreezes, phenol-formaldehyde resins, and plasticizers for PVC resins. Besides these chemicals, the site also produced high-purity aluminum trichloride from 1977 to 1990.
Since 1994, the facility has been operating under the status of a joint-stock company, in which 90 percent of shares belong to the state, and 10 percent to plant employees. The plant fell under the authority of the Kazakhstani Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Trade, which was tasked to manage the state's shares in the plant. Since then the Pavlodar plant has been entirely involved in civilian production, though some of the manufactured chemicals fell under the international dual-use lists. However, due to economic problems the plant has not been very successful in producing commercial chemicals. Particularly, since 1995 Pavlodar plant has been shut out of Russian markets, and the markets of other former Soviet republics, as other former Russian CW plants have increased the production of chemicals similar to those manufactured at Pavlodar (which manufacture requires similar corrosion-resistant reactors). The situation became even worse after August 1998, when the sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble raised the costs of Pavlodar's goods by 150-200% relative to Russian chemicals. As of 1999, the most of the buildings and infrastructure at the facility was inherited by the Khimprom Joint Venture (spin-off of the Pavlodar plant), which assumed responsibility to repay plant's debts and to sell excess equipment and facilities at the site. Nevertheless, the plant possesses dual-use equipment, particularly corrosion-resistant high-nickel steel reactors, which were converted to manufacture commercial chemicals. The plant also has personnel with CW expertise.
Key Sources:
1. Gulbarshyn Bozheyeva, "The Pavlodar Chemical Weapons Plant in Kazakhstan: History and Legacy," The Nonproliferation Review 7 (Summer 2000) http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol07/72/72bozh.pdf.
2. Jonathan B. Tucker, "Viewpoint: Converting Former Soviet Chemical Weapons Plants," The Nonproliferation Review 4 (Fall 2000), http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol04/41/tucker41.pdf.
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Updated September 2005 |
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