Caspian Pipeline Resumes Partial Kazakh Oil Loadings After Russian Court Ruling

(Reuters) — The Caspian Pipeline Consortium resumed loading oil at one of two previously shut Black Sea's moorings, it said on Wednesday, after a court lifted restrictions placed on the Western-backed group's facility by a Russian transport regulator.

The constraints targeting the CPC officially resulted from inspections related to a December oil products spill. But they came as OPEC+ members had been pressing Kazakhstan to reduce output to honor agreed production quotas.

The move sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity between Russia and Kazakhstan and fed concerns over a potential drop in oil exports from the Central Asian nation, 80% of which go via the CPC.

A court ruled on Friday that the CPC's terminal facilities should not be suspended, overturning the decision by the transport watchdog.

The CPC, whose shareholders include Chevron and ExxonMobil, is now operating at two of the three moorings at its export terminal, it said.

The CPC usually utilizes two moorings, keeping the third as a backup. It said it will give further information later about a resumption of operations at the third mooring, Single Point Mooring-2 (SPM-2).

A source familiar with CPC's operations said that without the third mooring, the consortium still faced a strain on its operations and exports.

Angering OPEC+

The resumption of loading will help avert a potential fall in Kazakhstan's oil exports.

Expected Black Sea CPC Blend oil exports for April were revised down, however, to 1.6 million barrels per day, or 6.2 million metric tons, from 1.7 million bpd in the preliminary plan, according to two industry sources.

The decline in loading is due to a fall in Russian oil exports via the CPC, the sources said, as there will be no supplies from the oil depot in the Krasnodar region, where there was a large fire in March after a drone attack.

There have been conflicting reports about the scale of the damage and its impact on exports via CPC.

A nearby pumping station was also attacked a month earlier, after which Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the oil flows via the route had dropped by approximately 30-40%, while Kazakhstan has said the flows had been unaffected.

The CPC has been in the spotlight since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine. The consortium closed all but one of its mooring points several times in 2022 due to damage, severely cutting exports via the route.

The pipeline is a major oil export route for Kazakhstan, which - due mainly to rising production from the giant Chevron-led Tengiz oilfield - has been breaching export quotas within the OPEC+ producer group, which includes OPEC and Russia.

Kazakhstan's rising oil production has angered several members of the group, including leading producer Saudi Arabia, sources have told Reuters.

OPEC+ is urging the Central Asian country, among other members, to make further cuts to compensate for excess production.

On Thursday, OPEC+ decided to raise output ahead of schedule, signaling the group was confident non-compliant members would reduce output in the coming weeks.