24-10-01 The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) announced that its 1,510 km pipeline had loaded the first tanker with crude at its Black Sea terminal in Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka near the Russian port of Novorossiisk. CPC said on October 15 said that upon completion of the trial loading of a 35,000-ton tanker, the consortium will continue to work with the relevant authorities and regulatory bodies to progress to regular tanker operations.
The CPC pipeline has a current design capacity of 560,000 bpd (28 mm tpy) and runs from Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield through southern Russia to the Black Sea. The pipeline will initially carry Tengiz crude, but crudes produced by other companies operating in Kazakhstan will eventually be added to the pipeline's throughput. During the next 10 years, the pipeline's capacity will be expanded to 1.34 mm bpd (67 mm tpy).
The operator of the Tengiz field, TengizChevrOil (TCO), began filling the pipeline last March with the intention of loading the first shipment in June. However, a number of technical problems and bureaucratic snags caused loading to be rescheduled several times, and an official inauguration date for the pipeline has yet to be set.
Eleven companies from six countries were involved in the construction of the $ 2.6 bn pipeline.
Equity interest in CPC is allocated as follows:
Russian Federation (24 %), Republic of Kazakhstan (19 %), Sultanate of Oman (7 %), Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium (15 %), LUKArco (12.5 %), Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures (7.5 %), Mobil Caspian Pipeline (7.5 %), Agip International (2 %), BG Overseas Holdings (2 %), Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures (1.75 %), Oryx Caspian Pipeline (Kerr-McGee Group of Companies-1.75 %).