Crude oil exports from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal on Russia’s Black Sea coast have been suspended due to adverse weather, the consortium said on Tuesday, as transshipment and loadings of oil from Kazakhstan face another setback.
Adverse weather conditions in the CPC MT operation area forced the consortium on Monday to suspend oil transshipment until weather improves and storm warnings are lifted, CPC said in a statement on Tuesday. The terminal halted accepting oil on Monday, too, due to insufficient storage space.
“It should be specifically pointed out that the oil shipment regularity was, to a major extent, affected by an unmanned boat attack on SPM-2 and damage to the latter, as well as the earlier commenced repairs on SPM-3, which were complicated by severe wintertime hydrometeorological conditions,” CPC said, referring to the Ukrainian drone attack at the end of November that damaged the single point mooring (SPM) 2.
Exports of Kazakhstan’s crude via the Tengiz-Novorossiysk oil pipeline and the CPC terminal have been limited since end-November due to the drone attack.
Oil has continued to flow, but at lower rates, while Kazakhstan sought to re-route some exports away from the Black Sea to keep supply relatively steady.
Kazakhstan’s crude and condensate production has fallen by 6% so far in December compared to the average output in November, an anonymous industry source told Reuters on Monday.
As a result of the damaged infrastructure at the CPC export terminal, crude and gas condensate output from Kazakhstan dropped by 6% between December 1 and 28, down from an average of 1.93 million barrels per day (bpd) in November, according to Reuters’ source.
CPC operates the pipeline from the Caspian coast in northwest Kazakhstan to the Novorossiysk port, which handles 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports from giant oilfields operated by international oil firms.
Affiliates of Chevron and ExxonMobil are also minority shareholders in CPC, with the Russian Federation as its largest shareholder with a 24% stake.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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