ASTANA, April 7 (Reuters) – Oil shipments via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium are stable, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said on Tuesday after Russia’s military accused Ukraine of damaging loading facilities belonging to the group in the Black Sea.
Russia’s Defence Ministry on Monday said Ukraine had attacked facilities at the maritime transhipment complex in the port of Novorossiysk overnight, damaging a mooring point for the CPC and igniting fires at four oil product reservoirs.
“The work of our oil sector is stable and CPC exports continue to be stable,” Sungat Yesimkhanov, Kazakhstan’s deputy energy minister, told reporters. On Monday, an adviser to the Kazakh energy ministry said the country was monitoring the situation following an incident at Novorossiysk, but gave no further detail.
The CPC terminal, located to the southwest of Novorossiysk, handles 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports. Supply volumes via the 1,510-km (938-mile) Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline rose last year to 70.5 million metric tons – or 1.53 million barrels per day – from 63 million tons in 2024.
GLOBAL OIL MAJORS ARE AMONG CPC SHAREHOLDERS
Ukraine has not responded to a Reuters request for comment on the alleged attack on CPC facilities. Its military said separately on Monday that its drones had attacked oil loading infrastructure at Sheskharis, about 15 km (9 miles) from the CPC terminal.
CPC did not reply to a request for comment. Its shareholders include U.S. major Chevron.
Chevron subsidiary Tengizchevroil, which operates the Tengiz oilfield, Kazakhstan’s largest and the main supplier to CPC exports, said the field’s exports had continued uninterrupted.
Separately, Tengizchevroil’s director general William Lacobie said on Tuesday that the field has returned to full production following power supply disruptions earlier this year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that there was no doubt that Ukraine had attacked the facility and that it had done so before. He referred questions on the status of operations to the CPC’s operator.
“The strikes took place. That much is clear. As we all know, this is not the first time the Kyiv regime has targeted the CPC’s infrastructure,” Peskov said.
The CPC had to temporarily halt its operations for a few days after Ukraine attacked its facilities at the end of November, effectively destroying one of three floating moorings.
(Reporting by Tamara Vaal and Dmitry Antonov; Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Andrew Osborn, Bernadette Baum and Barbara Lewis)
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