Crude oil loadings from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) marine terminal at Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka near Novorossiisk port were holding steady at around 1.6 million barrels per day so far in September, in line with a provisional export schedule, two traders familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
A revised CPC Blend oil loading plan for September was left unchanged from the provisional schedule, they added, as expected export disruptions did not materialise following an oil leak at the mooring point.
On August 29, CPC suspended operations at its second mooring point following an accident during a loading operation and an oil spill at its Black Sea terminal. It quickly restored loadings from a third mooring point that had been shut for planned maintenance, it said.
CPC, which handles more than one per cent of global oil, exports mainly from Kazakhstan via Russia and the Black Sea's terminal.
The pipeline operator is currently able to load oil at full capacity from two of its three single point moorings, traders said, with the third normally reserved in case of unplanned shutdowns on the others.
CPC said that monitoring of seawater quality near the terminal revealed that pollutant levels remained within permissible levels following completion of cleanup operations and the lifting of local emergency measures on August 30.
The September export volume is just slightly below August, when the terminal exported around 1.66 million bpd, reflecting stable flows from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan fields, which feed into the CPC pipeline.
The CPC pipeline is a key route for Kazakh crude exports to global markets, with most volumes destined to Europe and Asia. Russia also supplies smaller volumes of oil to the CPC flow.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Bernadette Baum)