Kazakhstan's economy may have lost around $1 billion in December of this year alone due to disruptions in the operation of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). This was stated by oil and gas industry analyst Olzhas Baidildinov, commenting on the reduction in oil shipment volumes.
As reported by Baidildinov, citing Reuters, the December shipment plan via the CPC decreased by 33% — from 6.7 million tonnes to 4.5 million tonnes. The main reasons were the consequences of attacks by Ukrainian drones, as well as technical limitations.
Specifically, the single point mooring SPM-2 was destroyed on 29 November, and SPM-3 is still undergoing scheduled maintenance, which has been prolonged due to adverse weather conditions and storms in the Black Sea. As a result, the CPC was forced to switch exclusively to loading Suezmax class tankers with a capacity of approximately 135,000 tonnes.
In January, according to the expert's assessment, the shipment volume via the CPC will be about 1.65 million barrels per day, which is also below the levels existing before the attacks.
Reuters cites data on the redistribution of some of the lost Kazakh oil volumes that were originally planned for shipment via the CPC. In particular:
- around 100,000 tonnes remained in the KazTransOil system (in tanks and pipelines);
- 100,000 tonnes were redirected through the Transneft system to the Baltic port of Ust-Luga;
- 50,000 tonnes were sent to China via the Atasu – Alashankou route;
- another 70–80,000 tonnes are planned for shipment across the Caspian Sea towards the Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan pipeline.
Thus, the total reduction in shipments via the CPC in December amounted to about 2.2 million tonnes, of which no less than 90% (approximately 2 million tonnes) was oil from Kazakhstan.
According to the analyst's estimate, only 320–330,000 tonnes of oil were able to be redirected via alternative routes on an emergency basis, with such routes being more expensive than transportation via the CPC. The remaining approximately 1.7 million tonnes can be considered direct losses to Kazakh oil production in December.
With an average market oil price of around $60 per barrel, the financial losses are estimated at approximately $745 million (380.1 billion tenge). However, the expert notes that this amount does not include additional losses from unextracted gas, unproduced liquefied petroleum gas, increased insurance costs, or the expenses for repairing the destroyed SPM.
Taking these factors into account, the total damage to the oil industry and the economy of Kazakhstan as a whole for December could reach around $1 billion.