A drone attack on an oil loading facility off Russia's Black Sea coast has sparked a diplomatic row between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, exposed the Central Asian country's dependence on a single oil export pipeline and potentially threatened Europe's gasoline supply.
On November 28, naval drones struck a large floating circular structure five kilometers offshore near the port of Novorossiysk, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based.
The facility was a single-point-filling (SPM), a shore-based facility for pumping oil onto tankers. There are three SPMs in Novorossiysk. One was already undergoing maintenance. The impact appears to have had a devastating impact on the port's oil loading capacity.
"The capacity of each port is 800.000 barrels per day. Operations will now effectively drop to one-third of normal offshore loading capacity," Vlad Padak, a fellow at Nightingale Intelligence, a political forecasting firm, told Radio Free Europe (RFE).
This is bad for Russia, which loads oil from its North Caucasus oil fields through the facility. But it is much worse for Kazakhstan, which exports 80 percent of its oil through a single pipeline to Novorossiysk.
"Kazakhstan found itself in a situation where it built its main export route through one country: Russia," said Kazakh political analyst Dimash Alzhanov.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Kazakhstan service, he said the country is now "hostage" to political decisions made "many years ago."
Strategic vulnerability
The pipeline operator, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), did not immediately respond to RFE/RL's requests for comment on the attack, which it condemned as a "deliberate terrorist attack."
According to Sergei Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, oil sales abroad provide about 40 percent of Kazakhstan's total export revenue.
The Kazakh government has lodged an official protest with the Ukrainian government over what it called “the third act of aggression against an exclusively civilian facility.” Earlier this year, a drone attack damaged a CPC pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, followed by another attack on its office in Novorossiysk.
Ukraine gave a sharp response to the Kazakh complaint. Stating that its armed forces are "systematically weakening the military-industrial potential of the aggressor", it noted "the absence of previous statements by the Kazakh side condemning the Russian Federation's attacks on civilians in Ukraine".
As the diplomatic fallout spreads, Kazakhstan has a problem.
"The two new SPMs nearing completion in Dubai cannot be installed quickly; delivery, installation and commissioning will take several months. Given the latest disruptions, all three SPMs will not be operational before summer-autumn 2026," Padak said.
"A modern SPM comparable to CPC's units costs $80-120 million, making replacement and unplanned infrastructure work a significant financial burden," he added.
Besides, even when everything is repaired and replaced, Ukraine could try to achieve this again. But Kazakhstan's reliance on European markets is only half the picture. The relationship is a two-way street.
Unintended consequences
Joe Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told RFE/RL that Kazakhstan's CPC blend is "light and sweet" – perfect for making gasoline.
"Kazakhstan is the European Union's third largest partner when it comes to oil, after the US and Norway. Approximately every ninth import, or barrel of import, of oil comes from Kazakhstan," he said.
In other words, the loss of Kazakh oil exacerbates Europe's existing problems with replacing Russian supplies that it massively reduced in response to the Kremlin's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
"Frankly, I worry that disruptions in the CPC could affect Europe. They could hurt Europe more than they hurt Russia. So I think it's fair to ask whether these strikes are strategically optimal," Webster added.
Sergey Vakulenko of the Carnegie Center expressed similar thoughts about Ukrainian actions having unexpected side effects.
While affecting the volume of Russian exports, the withdrawal of Kazakh oil from the market could also mean that "India, China and Turkey will be more willing to buy Russian oil" at higher prices than they currently do, he wrote.
Another aspect is Western involvement in the Kazakh oil industry, which has benefited from investments by companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and others. Indeed, Chevron has a 15 percent stake in CPC itself.
It is possible that Kazakhstan's best hope for maintaining oil exports through the CPC pipeline to Russia will be pressure from Western countries on Kiev to refrain from future strikes.
A few other options
Kazakhstan's vulnerability has led to renewed discussion about whether it can diversify its export routes.
Kazakhstan's second-largest route involves using oil tankers to cross the Caspian Sea to Baku, Azerbaijan. From there, the BTC pipeline runs through Georgia to Ceyhan, along Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
In 2024, about 1,5 million tons of oil were pumped through the BTC. But this compares to 63 million tons along the CDC pipeline. The expansion of this capacity is limited by the number of oil tankers in the Caspian Sea, as well as the capacity of the pipeline itself. The BTC route is also significantly more expensive.
Kazakhstan also exports some of its oil to European markets via the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Russia and Belarus. It has also been hit by repeated attacks by Ukrainian drones.
So, can Kazakhstan look east?
World Bank data from 2023 shows it exported $3,81 billion worth of oil to China - compared to $23,6 billion to Europe.
But making a strategic move to your huge, prosperous neighbor is not easy.
"I don't think the demand in Xinjiang, in western China, would be enough to absorb all those barrels," Webster said.
Building an oil pipeline to the east coast of China, a major power, would be prohibitively expensive, he added.
"I don't know why Chinese oil companies would even consider it. So I think the likelihood of Kazakhstan diverting oil from Europe to China is very low," Webster said.
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