Atyrau, Kazakhstan

🇰🇿 Atyrau (Атырау), known until 1991 as Guryev, is a city in Kazakhstan and the capital of Atyrau Region. Atyrau is a transcontinental city, at the mouth of the Ural River on the Caspian Sea, between Europe and Asia, 2,700 km (1,700 miles) west of Almaty and 351 km (218 miles) east of the Russian city of Astrakhan.

Atyrau is famous for its oil and gas industries. It is predominantly made up of Kazakhs, the minorities being Russians, Koreans, Tatars and Uzbeks.

Oil industry The third biggest refinery in Kazakhstan is located in Atyrau. Atyrau Refinery is operated by KazMunayGas and has a capacity of 16,600 m³/day (2012). A deep oil refining complex is under construction which is the final stage of complete reconstruction of Atyrau Oil Refinery. This project is designed to process 2.4 million tons/year of raw materials (oil and vacuum gas oil). The project will increase the depth of the oil processing at the refinery by 2016 to 85%. The volume of oil refining will reach 5.5 million tons per year.

Atyrau is located near Tengiz field, which is operated in part by Chevron. Most families of Chevron employees live in Dostyk village, a compound that includes housing, recreational facilities, and an international school. Atyrau also has expatriate populations working for Agip, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips.

Education The city contains Atyrau University.

Air Atyrau Airport (IATA: GUW, ICAO: UATG) serves the city of Atyrau. The airport is located 8 km north-west of Atyrau. The airport hosts 6 airlines, mostly operating domestic flights, and is the focus city of the flag carrier airline Air Astana. In 2019, it was the 5th busiest airport in Kazakhstan, as 937,032 people had passed the airport in that year. There are some international destinations, such as flights to Moscow, operated by Aeroflot, Amsterdam and Istanbul, both operated by Air Astana.

Railway There is a railway station, located north-east of Atyrau. There are mainly domestic routes, such as routes to large cities Almaty, Aktobe and Nur-Sultan, but there's also international routes, such as a route to Russian cities Astrakhan, Saratov, Moscow, Volgograd and Tajikistani cities Kulob, Khujand, Dushanbe and Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent.