One of the world’s key crude routes, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), suspended oil loading at its Black Sea marine terminal near Novorossiysk on Wednesday due to “critical” storm-caused damage to the equipment. Crude pumping has been reduced, with operations potentially fully halting in a day.
“To date, loading at the oil terminal has been completely stopped,” said Nikolay Gorban, CPC Director General. The repair of facilities could take up to two months, he explained, adding that oil deliveries from the terminal to countries, including Italy, France, the US and Spain may fall by 3-5 times.
Earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister and former energy minister Alexander Novak said the Russian side was “monitoring the situation and doing everything we can to fix the damage as soon as possible.” However, Novak confirmed it will take 1.5–2 months to restore the supply. “And during this period, of course, this volume of oil may not be supplied, which may affect the global crude markets.”