Russia cuts westbound oil transit from Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan had offered the EU to ship more oil and gas to Europe.
Now an important terminal had to be closed.
A Black Sea terminal intended for the export of Kazakh oil has been ordered to shut down for 30 days by a court in southern Russia. The stop was justified with possible environmental damage, as the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday night. Most recently, there had been disagreements between Russia and the neighboring Central Asian ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan because of the Ukraine war.
The operating company Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is “forced to implement the court decision”, but will appeal against it, according to a statement by the company. According to official information, the documentation for the emergency plan for the elimination of any oil spills is incomplete. The authorities had originally given CPC until November 30 to eliminate the violations, but in a court hearing on Tuesday, the regional transport regulator surprisingly called for the terminal to be closed – and was right.
Kazakhstan wanted to supply oil and gas to Europe
80 percent of the oil exported from Kazakhstan flows through the terminal in the southern Russian port city of Novorossiysk – Kazakhstan does not have its own access to the world’s oceans. The handling capacity is 67 million tons of oil per year.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev recently offered the EU to deliver more oil and gas to Europe to ensure the continent’s energy security despite the Ukraine war and the associated sanctions against Russia. Kazakhstan has not recognized the independence of Moscow’s sponsored separatist republics in eastern Ukraine.
