Kazakhstan has stepped up efforts to safeguard its oil transport operations amid heightened concerns that a critical crude export route — and revenue source for the government — could become collateral damage if Ukraine’s attacks on Russian assets in the Black Sea escalate.
Late last week, two successful sea drone attacks by Ukraine against a Russian warship and an oil products tanker near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk caused marine operations in the area to be curtailed.
A village near the port hosts the terminus of the Caspian Pipeline that transports oil from Kazakhstan’s huge Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan fields, where major Western oil companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Eni are significant investors.
Smaller volumes of Kazakh oil also are exported via the port of Novorossiysk together with Russian volumes.
Kazakh oil arrives to the port from the country’s trunkline network, connected to Kazakhstan by the Atyrau – Samara link.
Speaking today in the Kazakh capital of Astana, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev revealed an urgent order from Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov to work out “a political initiative to ensure the stability of operations” at Novorossiysk.
Oil supplies via the port flow to major global consumers, some of which are located in the European Union, Satkaliyev said.
He added that Kazakhstan is stepping up its diplomatic and governmental contacts with other concerned countries to avoid possible interruptions to the “security of (oil) supplies” in the Black Sea.
On Friday, Russian authorities shut inbound and outbound vessel traffic in the Novorossiysk area for several hours after a drone hit a Russian military landing ship just several kilometres from three offshore tanker-loading buoys operated by Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium is understood to export oil to international markets at the rate of over 1.2 million barrels per day, handling over 80% of total Kazakh oil exports that arrive at the loading location via a 1500-kilometre pipeline from Kazakhstan.
Major shareholders in Caspian Pipeline are the four US and European majors as well as the Russian and Kazakh governments.
In the early hours of last Saturday, another drone exploded near a Russian-owned oil products tanker as it reportedly sailed to the port of Feodosia in Crimea.
The tanker has remained afloat and was later reportedly pulled by tugs to the Russian port of Anapa for temporary repairs to enable onward transport of the vessel to a drydock.
Authorities in Kiev had earlier warned that they may target vessels entering or exiting Russian Black Sea ports and suspected of serving Russian military needs, after similar Russian threats against vessels sailing to the Ukrainian ports and Moscow’s massive missile strikes on Ukraine’s grain storage and loading terminals on the Black Sea coast.
Satkaliyev said the Caspian Pipeline Consortium has sufficient storage capacity at its Black Sea export terminal near the village of Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka, while all major shippers using the pipeline operate their own storage tanks to ensure the continuity of operations in the event of emergency.
Oleg Chervinsky, a publisher of Kazakh oil industry magazine Petroleum, argued that the Kazakh government, while working out wider diplomatic moves, may first seek “consultations with the US and European shareholders” in the country’s oil and gas projects.
“Shareholders are no less interested in the stable operation of the port of Novorossiysk than Kazakhstan. The government may anticipate that stakeholders will use their levers of influence to ensure that the Caspian Pipeline’s terminal is excluded from hostilities,” Chervinsky said.
Source : UpStream