Representatives of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan have reported that an oil terminal in the port of Aktau belonging to Askar Kulibayev has been returned to the state. The 134-hectare property is valued at $66 million.
“It was established that in 2011, the oil terminal was alienated into the ownership of Kulibayev’s company. On February 26th, 2024, by the decision of the Specialized Inter-district Economic Court of Mangistau region, the claim of the Almaty city prosecutor was satisfied, and the oil terminal was returned to the state’s ownership,” said the supervisory body.
The Almaty prosecutor’s office stated that the claim was filed to compensate for the damage caused by the unlawful seizure of a foreign investor’s property. However, the official message does not name the affected company.
Now 87-years-old, Askar Kulibayev served as First Secretary of the Guryev (now Atyrau) Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and as the Minister of Construction in independent Kazakhstan. He is the matchmaker of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter, and the father of Kazakhstan’s richest man, Timur Kulibayev. In 2024, Timur Kulibayev and his wife Dinara Kulibayeva, still sit atop the list of the richest Kazakhs. The combined fortune of the Nazarbayev family is estimated at almost $10 billion.
