Oil exports from Russia and Kazakhstan to Asia, Europe and other regions of the globe are perceived to be in increasing danger as Ukraine intensifies its fight against the Russian blockade of its Black Sea ports and Russian missile attacks on its grain export and storage infrastructure along its Black Sea coast.
Unmanned sea drones, each reportedly carrying about 350 kilograms of explosives, severely damaged two Russian vessels at the end of last week.
These were a military landing ship, sailing near the country’s main oil export port of Novorossiysk, and an oil products tanker, apparently sailing to the port of Feodosia on the Russian-annexed Crimea Peninsula.
Commentators in Ukraine said that tanker Sig with a deadweight of about 6600 tonnes, was not carrying any cargo at the time of attack. However, the vessel was thought to have been sailing to Feodosia to pick up a cargo of jet fuel from a major storage depot in the port. According to a video released on Ukraine’s Armed Forces’ social network channel, a guided sea drone was approaching a tanker from its side before the recording broke as a result of the impact.
The tanker and its Russian registered owner, Transpetrochart, have been under US sanctions since 2016, as part of the fleet initially delivering products from Russia to Feodosia and later periodically sailing with jet fuel to a port in Syria, with the fuel being used at the Russian military base in the country.
The attack on the landing ship outside the port of Novorossiysk occurred just a few kilometres from the offshore oil tanker loading facilities operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium that handle Kazakh transit oil exports via Russia.
However, CPC was quick to dispel concerns, saying in a statement that none of its offshore oil export infrastructure was damaged as the result of the drone strike nearby.
According to marine traffic websites, no tankers were loading oil at CPC’s offshore loading buoys on Sunday, with just one tanker seen at a loading berth in the port of Novorossiysk itself.
However, Andrey Klymenko, a project director at Ukraine’s Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies suggested the Russian authorities may have instructed some of their tankers to switch off their AIS vessel identification beacons to make vessel movement tracking more difficult for Ukraine.
Russian and Kazakh oil producers shipped more than 700,000 barrels per day of oil via the port of Novorossiysk in June, giving it a 27% share in total Russian oil shipments via country’s ports in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Barents Sea, according to estimates provided by Moscow-based consultancy InfoTEK.
Meanwhile, CPC’s oil exports are estimated at upwards of 1.2 million bpd, with the operator last week announcing that its long-running capacity upgrade programme was finally completed, boosting total throughput capacity of the 1500-kilometre network to more than 1.7 million bpd.
However, it is unclear when Kazakhstan will agree to use this additional throughput capacity offered by CPC, as the country has committed to partially replace Russian oil suppliers to Germany with its own oil shipments, and promised to export oil via alternative routes, avoiding Russian transit.
However, the flow of Kazakh oil to Germany via Russia, Belarus and Poland through the Druzhba Pipeline was interrupted late last week.
Polish pipeline operator PERN said it had halted pumping Kazakh oil through a section of the Druzhba pipeline after detecting a leak in central Poland on Saturday, though it expects flows to resume on Tuesday.
PERN said there was no indication that a third party had caused the leak, and added that work to replace the damaged segment of the pipeline is progressing around the clock, with pumping expected to resume for Tuesday morning.
No Russian oil has been pumped via Druzhba to Poland and Germany since the start of the second quarter because of the European embargo on Russian oil imports.
Source : Upstream