Kazakh Oil Shipments Halted Again After Attacks On Two Tankers At Novorossiysk Port

Kazakh crude exports have stopped again at an oil terminal near the Russian Port of Novorossiysk after two tankers that arrived to load oil from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium Facility were hit by drones overnight.

The terminal had begun operations a few days back, as previous attacks halted tanker loadings at the Black Sea facility that handles more than 75% of Kazakhstan’s total oil exports. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy said that it was aware of the attacks and will give an official statement soon.

Caspian Pipeline Consortium gave a statement describing the incident when a drone hit the tanker Nissos Sifnos while it was receiving oil through an offshore single point mooring unit.

The drone targeted an oil reception manifold area on the cargo deck, after which a fire broke out, which was extinguished by the tanker crew with the help of three support ships. No casualties or injuries were reported, and no spill or leaks happened.

The Nissos Sifnos was to load oil produced at the Tengiz oilfield, operated by Chevron. Initial inspections after the attack reveal that the ship is seaworthy, and detailed damage assessments are underway.

Oil loading operations have stopped, but the pipeline infrastructure has remained operational.

Another tanker, called Marathi, reached the facility to load oil, but it was also attacked by drones 6 nm from the terminal.

The outage last week had led to a reduction in oil production at Kazakhstan’s Tengiz, Kashagan and Karachaganak fields, and production started to increase this week after loadings were resumed on Monday.

The terminal is located at the end of a 1,500 km-long oil pipeline that runs from the Tengiz oilfield across Kazakhstan and Russia, capable of transporting 1.6 million barrels of oil per day from Kazakhstan.

It can also handle an extra 230,000 bpd from Russian oil producers, mainly Lukoil, which uses the pipeline to transport oil from its three oilfields in the Russian part of the Caspian Sea.

Ukraine had earlier targeted the three offshore oil and gas production platforms operated by Lukoil using drones, and most recently it attacked the Filanovskogo field.

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the Russian government blamed Ukraine for previous attacks on the facility, which halted loadings; however, Kyiv has not confirmed the same.

Ukraine has in the past accepted responsibility for several air and naval drone strikes targeting ships in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea in June and July.