CPC says oil exports suspended due to storm at Black Sea

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which delivers oil from Kazakhstan, said it had suspended oil exports from the Black Sea's terminal on Monday due ‌to bad weather.

It ‌also said that terminal has halted oil intake due to full reservoirs until weather improves.

CPC's ‌loading operations have already been constrained by the Ukrainian drone attack on November 29.


The exports bottlenecks at the terminal near the Russian Black Sea's port of Novorossiysk, which handles around 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports, have also lead ​to

a drop in oil production

in the Central ​Asia's country this month.

The November drone attack has meant Kazakhstan's ‌exports of its ‍flagship CPC Blend will be their lowest in 14 ‍months in December.

Kazakhstan's fields operated by U.S. and European ‌oil majors Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Eni and Shell export oil via the terminal.

An industry source told Reuters on Monday that oil exports from Kazakhstan alone via the terminal fell by 19% so far in December from November's average to 1.082 million bpd. CPC also exports a relatively small amount of Russian oil.

Since November 29, the CPC ‍terminal has operated with a single mooring point - SPM-1 - after SPM-2 was taken offline following the drone attack.

SPM-3 was already out ‍of operation, ⁠since mid-November, for maintenance, ⁠which has been held up by bad weather. Usually, two of the pieces of equipment are engaged in operations, while the third is used as a backup.

"The pace of oil shipments was significantly affected by the consequences of a terrorist attack using an unmanned boat on SPM-2 and the resulting damage, as well as by earlier repair work on SPM-3, which was complicated by severe hydrometeorological conditions of the winter period," CPC said on Tuesday.