Kazakhstan on Wednesday urged the US and Europe to help secure the transport of oil following drone attacks on tankers heading to a Black Sea terminal on the Russian coast. The terminal handles one per cent of global supply.
Unidentified drones struck at least two oil tankers in the Black Sea on Tuesday, including one chartered by US oil major Chevron. This occurred as they sailed toward a terminal on the Russian coast to load oil from Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said in a statement that three tankers were hit en route to the marine terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in the Black Sea. This follows a November 29 attack on CPC's exporting equipment which resulted in a fall in oil exports.
"The increasing frequency of such incidents highlights the growing risks to the functioning of international energy infrastructure," the ministry said in a statement. "We therefore call upon our partners to engage in close cooperation to develop joint measures aimed at preventing similar incidents in the future."
The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday that the Matilda tanker, sailing under the Maltese flag, came under attack by two Ukrainian strike drones. This occurred at a distance of about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the city of Anapa in Russia's Krasnodar region.
Ukraine did not comment on the incident. Shareholders in CPC's 1,500-kilometre (930-mile) pipeline include Kazakhstan's state-owned oil company KazMunayGas, Russia's Lukoil and units of US oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil.
Russian terminals on the Black Sea handle more than two per cent of global crude. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania and Turkey, as well as Russia and Ukraine, and are also crucial for the shipment of grain.
CPC alone accounts for around 80 per cent of oil exports from Kazakhstan.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Potter and Guy Faulconbridge)
