Russia's largest oil port on the Black Sea halted operations after drone attack
The Sheskharis oil terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk on Friday, August 14, halted oil transshipment and export after a drone attack. This was reported to Reuters by sources in the oil industry.
On Friday afternoon, the Novorossiysk administration again declared an air raid alert due to the threat of drone attacks.
According to one source, at dawn, a tanker that was supposed to arrive at the port for oil loading turned around and headed for the open sea due to the threat of attack.
After this, the port was forced to temporarily stop both loading oil onto tankers and receiving new crude oil at the terminal. The reason was that the terminal's tank farm was completely filled.
"Sheskharis" is capable of transshipping about 700 thousand barrels of oil per day. It is Russia's largest oil export terminal on the Black Sea.
Russian Urals oil, Kazakh KEBCO, and light Siberian Light oil are supplied for export through Novorossiysk.
According to a source familiar with export statistics, in June, oil shipments through Novorossiysk were close to record highs — about 1 million barrels per day. This amounted to more than 4.3 million tons of oil per month.
In July, the figure decreased to approximately 800 thousand barrels per day, or about 3.4 million tons per month.
Drone attacks have repeatedly affected the operation of oil infrastructure in the Novorossiysk area. In July, such attacks caused disruptions in the operation of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal, through which CPC Blend oil is exported.
The current suspension of Sheskharis' operations could complicate the export of both Russian and Kazakh oil through one of the most important oil hubs in the Black Sea.
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