Kazakhstan Redirects Kashagan Oil to China Amid CPC Issues

Kazakhstan has begun redirecting part of its Kashagan crude to China due to the limited capacity of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which is still operating through only one loading point, Orda.kz reports.

Reuters sources say 50,000 tons of Kashagan oil will be shipped to China in December, marking the first direct deliveries from the field via the Atasu–Alashankou pipeline. CNPC is expected to take around 30,000 tons, and Inpex about 20,000 tons.

Both companies are members of the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), which develops Kashagan.

The shift comes after a Ukrainian drone strike severely damaged the CPC’s Black Sea terminal. SPU-2 has been taken offline, while SPU-3 remains under scheduled maintenance, leaving only one functioning loading unit.

The CPC normally handles about 1% of the global oil supply and is jointly owned by Russia, Kazakhstan, and the United States.

Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry has not commented directly but said the country is actively working to secure additional export routes.

The Atasu–Alashankou pipeline, which links Kazakhstan to China’s Xinjiang region, usually transports crude from other fields. Current shipments through the route total 85,000–86,000 tons per month. Kazakhstan had planned to export around 1 million tons through Atasu–Alashankou in 2025, down from 1.2 million tons in 2024; 850,000 tons have already been shipped in the first ten months of this year.

Kashagan is one of the world’s largest oil discoveries of the past four decades, located in the northern Caspian Sea and named after the poet Kashagan Kurzhimanuly.

The CPC terminal is not expected to resume full capacity before December 11. SPU-3’s restart has been delayed by poor weather and diving operations, and repairs to SPU-2 may take months.

As a result of the bottleneck, Kazakhstan’s oil and condensate output fell 6% in the first two days of December, forcing producers to reroute volumes through lower-margin alternatives.

Original Author: Ruslan Loginov