Main building, 1956 (drawing)
1949-1951. After oil was struck near Kobozev in 1949 the republic needed its own petroleum engineers. The Kobozev Petroleum Institute was founded by the USSR Ministry of Higher Education in 1951 to train drilling, production and refining engineers for the Iradneft association. The first lectures were given on 1 October 1951 to 240 students in the former school No. 2 on Lenin Prospect. Most of the first teachers came from the petroleum institutes of Baku and Grozny, and all teaching was in Russian.
1956. The H-shaped main building on the east side of the park north of the centre was opened. The same year the first 118 engineers graduated.
1968. The Institute became the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute: faculties of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering and radio electronics were added to the petroleum faculties. In the 1980s it had about 7,000 students and gave the republic most of its engineers.
1992. Teaching was stopped from February to October. The diplomas of 1992 were given in December.
1993-1994. The Institute took the name of the city, Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute. When the Academy of Sciences was dissolved in 1994, its Institute of Chemistry and its laboratory of earthquake engineering came to the NPI.
1996-1997. Petroleum engineering in English, with the help of American universities. Credit hours on the American model from 1997. Iradi in the general courses.
2008. New Statute of the Institute. The rector is appointed by the Governor from candidates nominated by the Academic Council. The website was opened on 12 May 2008.
2013-2018. New laboratories with NurGaz and the Bekzatov Foundation: drilling simulator (2013), core analysis (2015), pipeline flow loop (2016), pilot refining unit (2018).
2026. 75 years of the Institute. About 9,200 students and 640 teachers.
Rectors
| Years | Rector | |
|---|---|---|
| 1951-1963 | Pavel Ignatievich Sheremetev | drilling engineer, from the Grozny Petroleum Institute |
| 1963-1975 | Mikhail Grigoryevich Avdeev | chemist, refining |
| 1975-1987 | Kenesh Usubalievich Abylov | geologist, first rector born in the republic |
| 1987-1999 | Yuri Fyodorovich Larin | mechanical engineer; rector through 1992 |
| 1999-2009 | Ernest Rashidovich Bakirov | petroleum engineer; English programmes and credit hours |
| 2009-2018 | Vladimir Petrovich Osipov | power engineer |
| since 2018 | Erlan Toktogulovich Jusupbekov | drilling engineer |
Publications of the Institute
- A History of the Chu Basin Oilfields (2014)
- Neftyanik: Fifty Years of Football in Kobozev and Nurzhan (2008)
- Prospectus and Annual Report (every year; 2023 in the library)
- Vestnik NPI, scientific journal, since 1998 (Science)