Oil exports from Russia’s important pipeline on the Black Sea coast will stop completely on Wednesday, and Moscow will supply energy in the same way that US President Joe Biden arrives in Europe to discuss the war in Ukraine. It pushed up oil prices amid concerns that it might be interrupted.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium is a group of Moscow headquarters that operates a pipeline connecting the Kazakh oil field and the port of Novola Siska in Russia, and was used on Wednesday to load oil from arteries over 1,500 km into tankers. He said he shut down all three units. Storm damage.
“The unusual storm has completely stopped loading for objective reasons,” CPC CEO Nikolai Goban said Wednesday. “We have found some damage that we do not allow [us] This is to operate the mooring of a single point more safely. “
Two of the terminal’s three mooring units were “seriously” damaged and completely disabled, according to Goban. One-third were waiting for inspection, but divers couldn’t investigate the damage until the storm cleared, he said.
He added that repair work would be delayed because Western companies were reluctant to supply parts. Biden this month banned US companies from investing in Russia’s energy sector and banned oil imports from the country.
It will be completely closed as EU leaders are preparing to discuss deeper sanctions against Moscow, which has decided to invade Ukraine.
“A weather-related” accident “is certainly convenient from a Moscow perspective,” said Bob McNally, head of consultancy Rapidan Energy Group and former adviser to George W. Bush Whitehouse. Says.
“If Russia is not ready to embargo its oil exports, Russia may be willing to fight the last Kazakh Barrel in an intensifying economic war with the world.”
The full closure on Wednesday took place less than a day after Moscow announced that it would partially close its infrastructure to assess the damage caused by the storm to mooring a single point in the port.
Florian Thaler, CEO of oil tracking company OilX, said repairs could be relatively easy, but “political problems can be protracted and actually worsen shutdowns. It may cause you to do it. “
The move will stop exports of 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, surpassing the expected 1 million barrels per day from a partial shutdown on Tuesday. Brent crude, an international oil marker, rose 5% on Wednesday to over $ 121 a barrel.
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According to Goban, the pipeline could pump oil to the coast for another day, but without a way to export crude oil, Novorossiysk’s storage tanks would be full by the end of Thursday and the pipeline would be completely closed. Will be done.
CPC mainly ships oil produced in Kazakhstan by companies such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, as well as Russian crude oil from oil fields along the route. Chevron said Wednesday that exports from the Tengiz oil field continued uninterrupted. Exxon did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
About 10% of CPC’s oil could be transported via another pipeline between Baku in Azerbaijan and Ceyhan in Turkey, Taller said. However, some production in Kazakhstan may need to be idle until the CPC resumes.
According to the CPC, 213 of the 585 tankers loaded from the pipeline in 2021 went to Italy. An additional 41 went to Spain, 39 to France and 26 to the United States. The US import ban exempts oil produced in Kazakhstan, which accounts for about 90% of the pipeline flow.
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