Maintenance work on single point mooring SPM-3 at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) Russian Black Sea terminal is in its final stages, the company said on Wednesday, as it prepares to dismantle and replace another mooring damaged by a Ukrainian naval drone.
SPM-3 has been undergoing planned maintenance since mid-November, while a drone attack on SPM-2 in late November caused a major bottleneck in crude exports. The disruption led to a sharp decline in oil production and exports from Kazakhstan, which relies heavily on the CPC system.
The CPC terminal near the port of Novorossiysk handles about 1.5 per cent of global oil supply and roughly 80 per cent of Kazakhstan’s total crude oil exports. The facility operates three single point moorings—floating loading buoys located about five kilometres offshore at Yuzhnaya Ozereevka—typically using two for loading operations while keeping one as backup.
“Special attention was paid to the final activities involved in repairing the CPC’s single point mooring SPM-3,” the consortium said in a statement. Since mid-November 2025, crews have carried out partial replacement of subsea hoses and loading arms under challenging weather conditions.
SPM-2 remains offline after sustaining significant damage in a Ukrainian naval drone attack on November 29. CPC said earlier this week that inspections confirmed the mooring is beyond repair and must be dismantled and replaced.
Industry sources estimate that oil exports via the CPC system fell by 24 per cent in December compared with the previous month following the attacks. Kazakhstan’s crude oil production also dropped by around 35 per cent during the first 12 days of January.
CPC shareholders include Kazakhstan’s state oil company Kazmunaygas, Russia’s Lukoil, and units of U.S. oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil. Kazmunaygas said Kazakhstan redirected about 300,000 metric tonnes of oil away from the CPC route in December.
Security concerns have intensified further after unidentified drones struck at least two oil tankers in the Black Sea last week, including one chartered by Chevron, as they were sailing towards the CPC terminal.
