Russia cuts oil transit from Kazakhstan to Europe - with dubious justification
Created: 07/06/2022, 10:45 am
Kazakhstan has no access to the world's oceans, so it has to export its oil via Russia.
But a Russian court has surprisingly shut down an important terminal.
Russia stops
oil exports
from
Kazakhstan
: A Russian court surprisingly shut down a terminal for transit to Europe
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Novorossiysk- The ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan has huge oil reserves under the ground - but the country is dependent on its large neighbor Russia for exports across the oceans to Europe.
80 percent of the oil exported from Kazakhstan - 67 million tons of oil per year - flows through the terminal in the southern Russian port city of Novorossiysk.
But a Russian court has now closed the terminal - allegedly because environmental regulations are not being met.
Most recently, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev offered the EU to deliver more oil and gas to Europe to ensure the continent's energy security despite the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russia.
Kazakhstan is actually a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, there are disagreements between Russia and the ex-Soviet republic because of the war against Ukraine.
Among other things, Kazakhstan has not recognized the independence of the Moscow-protected separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine-News: Russia closes terminal for oil exports from Kazakhstan - from threadbare greens
The Black Sea terminal intended for the export of Kazakh oil has to be closed for 30 days by the court order.
The stop was justified with possible environmental damage, as the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday night (July 6th).
The documentation of the emergency plan for the elimination of possible oil spills is incomplete, it is officially said.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokajev (l) and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in 2019. © Mikhail Metzel/Imago
The operating company Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is "forced to implement the court decision" but will appeal against it, according to a statement from the company.
Originally, the authorities had given CPC until November 30 to eliminate the violations.
But in a court hearing on Tuesday, the regional transport authority surprisingly called for the terminal to be closed - and was right.
(dpa)