Kazakhstan’s exports of its flagship CPC Blend of oil will be their lowest in 14 months in December, as bad weather delays efforts to repair Russian loading infrastructure after Ukrainian drone strikes last month, two market sources said on Wednesday.

Ukraine has intensified attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months as it seeks to cut Moscow’s revenues. On this occasion, the damage has disrupted oil sales from Kazakhstan as well as from Russia.

CPC Blend loadings will fall to 1.14 million barrels per day from 1.7 million bpd in the initial plan, the sources familiar with the loading programme said. That would be the lowest since October 2024, according to LSEG data.

On November 29, Ukrainian drones hit the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal located near Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, leaving just one out of three jetties operational and prolonging export delays. Poor weather has added to the difficulty of carrying out maintenance work necessary to allow exports to recover.

OIL MAJORS RELY ON THE CPC TERMINAL TO EXPORT KAZAKH OIL

The CPC Terminal is the loading point for oil from Kazakhstan’s fields operated by U.S. and European oil majors Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Eni and Shell.

A CPC representative declined to comment on the terminal’s operations and maintenance.

The cuts to loadings could be even deeper, depending on the progress of repairs at the CPC terminal, the sources added, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.

Since November 29, the terminal has operated with a single mooring point – SPM-1 – after SPM-2 was taken offline following the drone attack.

SPM-3 was already out of operation, since mid-November, for maintenance, which has been held up by bad weather.

As a result, a new round of cargo cancellations has been announced in recent days, three separate trade sources told Reuters.

The CPC Terminal loaded 26 cargoes with around 3.28 million metric tons, equivalent to 26 million barrels, of crude oil over the period December 1-23, according to data from analytics firm Kpler.

“With only one operational SPM and storage tanks full, Kazakh production is having to moderate. Some buyers of CPC may have to cover, with the North Sea the only real prompt alternative, which has likely supported physical Brent recently,” Christopher Haines, Energy Aspects’ head of oil, said.

Global Brent oil futures prices rose by more than $1 a barrel in the immediate aftermath of the November 29 attack and supplies of CPC Blend have shrunk as the grade’s exporters have limited alternative shipment routes.

CPC plans CPC Blend crude exports in January at around 1.65 million bpd.

Exporters have been waiting for SPM-3 to come back online since early December and have had to adjust export plans multiple times and divert some volumes to other routes, including China and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, one of the sources said.
Source: Reuters