Kazakhstan Says CPC Oil Exports Stable Despite Ukrainian Strike Claims

(MENAFN) Kazakhstan moved Tuesday to reassure global energy markets that crude exports through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) remain uninterrupted, pushing back against Russian assertions that a Ukrainian drone strike had damaged critical oil infrastructure at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

"According to my colleagues, our oil operations in all directions are stable from this block, and exports via the CPC continue steadily," Deputy Energy Minister Sungat Yesimkhanov told reporters at a government briefing, according to the Kazinform news agency.

Yesimkhanov's reassurances came one day after Moscow alleged that Kyiv had targeted the CPC terminal in Novorossiysk in an overnight drone offensive — an attack Russia charged was designed to "destabilize the global hydrocarbon market and disrupt oil product supplies to European consumers."

Kyiv has yet to directly respond to those allegations. However, Ukraine's General Staff separately claimed responsibility for striking oil-loading infrastructure at the Sheskharis oil terminal, located approximately 15 kilometers (9 miles) northeast of the CPC's marine terminal in the village of Yuzhnaya Ozereevka. "Hits and a large-scale fire were recorded on the terminal territory," it said in a statement released later Monday.

Earlier that same day, Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev confirmed that the region had endured a "massive" overnight drone bombardment, which left eight people injured and caused structural damage to six apartment buildings and two private residences across Novorossiysk.

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