Kazakhstan's main export pipeline, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), returned to full loading capacity at its terminal on the Russian Black Sea coast on Sunday when maintenance was completed at one of its three mooring points and a tanker was loaded with crude, the pipeline said.
Kazakhstan, ranked as the world's 12th largest producer, has faced a number of export challenges over recent months, including an attack on the CPC in late November by a Ukrainian drone which left the pipeline pumping at below capacity and a shutdown earlier this month in production at the vast Tengiz oil field.
The CPC terminal, which handles about 1.5 per cent of global oil supply and 80 per cent of Kazakhstan's crude exports, has been operating below capacity since a Ukrainian naval drone damaged single mooring point 2 (SPM-2), essentially a floating buoy which connects to tankers to load oil.
That attack left just one single mooring point - SPM-1 - in operation as a third, SPM-3, was undergoing maintenance. Now, CPC said, SPM-3 is back in operation and loaded a tanker on Sunday.
"At the CPC sea terminal, repair work has been completed on the SPM-3 mooring point," the CPC, which includes Russian, Kazakh and U.S. shareholders, said in a statement. Reuters reported earlier on Sunday that the SPM-3 had been repaired.
The CPC said that underwater hoses had also been replaced and tested, and that a tanker was being loaded.
"In this regard, we emphasise that the fulfillment of oil shippers' requests according to annual plans is guaranteed with the simultaneous operation of at least two SPMs," CPC said.
Three SPMs - floating buoys located about five kilometres (three miles) from the Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka CPC terminal near Novorossiysk - are used for offshore tanker loading; usually two are active, with one as a backup.
Still, the problems at the Tengiz field, the main source of CPC Blend, may continue to restrict shipments of the grade. Tengizchevroil (TCO), operated by Chevron, issued a force majeure on CPC Blend supplies after the fire and subsequent power outage, the sources said.
CPC's 1,500-kilometre pipeline is owned by a consortium including Kazakhstan's Kazmunaygas, Russia's Lukoil, and subsidiaries of Chevron and ExxonMobil.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
