The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) has suspended operations once again following Ukrainian drone strikes on two tankers at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Reuters reported, citing the pipeline operator.

According to the operator, the drone attacks struck two tankers while they were loading at Novorossiysk, igniting a fire on one of the vessels. In the aftermath of the incident, five tankers en route to Novorossiysk diverted to Turkey and Spain, or altered their status to "for orders," Reuters reported.

This marks the third CPC shutdown within a single month. The pipeline had reopened only days earlier after recovering from previous drone attacks. The preceding shutdown lasted a full week, severely disrupting Kazakhstan's export operations and forcing a reduction in crude oil production. The repeated stoppages highlight the vulnerability of a corridor that typically moves roughly 1.3 million barrels per day—about 1% of global oil supply—and that has no short-term alternative of comparable scale for landlocked Kazakhstan.

Industry data cited by Reuters earlier in the week showed that Kazakhstan's combined oil and gas condensate output dropped to 133,200 metric tons—approximately 1 million barrels per day—on Sunday, compared with an average of 2.16 million bpd in June.

The disruption adds to mounting pressure on global oil flows, which are already strained by ongoing shipping disruptions in both the Black Sea and Middle East routes, including the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

The 1,500-kilometer CPC pipeline transports crude from Kazakhstan's giant Tengiz oilfield across southern Russia to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. It carries more than 80% of Kazakhstan's crude exports. International energy producers, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, depend on the route to move Tengiz production to global markets. The CPC is itself a multinational joint venture, with shareholders including the Russian government, Kazakhstan's KazMunayGas, and a consortium of Western oil companies led by Chevron.

Ukrainian forces have been targeting Russian energy infrastructure for several months, and the CPC has been among the targets on multiple occasions. The most recent week-long shutdown temporarily removed more than 1 million bpd of Kazakh production from the market, compounding supply risks at a time when global oil flows remain under sustained pressure. For Kazakhstan, where oil and gas revenues account for a large share of government income, each prolonged outage carries economic consequences beyond the immediate supply shock.

Source: OilPrice.com