ASTANA – The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which exports around 80% of Kazakh oil, has been shut down for a week following Ukrainian drone attacks on July 17 and 19. The recurrent attacks renew questions about the country’s energy security, export dependence and the growing challenge of preserving its balanced foreign policy.
The tankers Asia and Nissos Ios were loading oil produced in Kazakhstan when they were attacked at the CPC terminal on the Black Sea. In a statement, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, describing them as an “unacceptable infringement on Kazakhstan’s economic interests” and said they amounted to deliberate attempts to destabilize legitimate international trade, global energy markets and transport and logistics chains.
The ministry called for an immediate end to the attacks and urged Kazakhstan’s partners to condemn them unequivocally and work together on practical measures to protect infrastructure used to export Kazakh hydrocarbons. Kazakhstan resumed crude oil exports via CPC on July 27.
Unlike previous disruptions, the latest attacks forced a complete suspension of operations along the export route, significantly raising the stakes for Kazakhstan and its international energy partners, and threatening nearly 1.5 million barrels per day of oil exports.
On July 30, the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Nissos Sifnos was attacked by drones while loading Tengizchevroil crude at one of the CPC terminal’s offshore moorings, according to a statement released by CPC press service. The strike caused a fire near the vessel’s oil-receiving manifolds, but the crew, assisted by three CPC support vessels, extinguished it.
No casualties or oil spill were reported, and the tanker remained afloat while its damage was assessed. The CPC pipeline is Kazakhstan’s primary crude oil export route, transporting the majority of the country’s oil exports from western Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk for shipment to international markets.
Among its key shareholders are Russia (24%), KazMunayGas (19%), Chevron (15%), and Lukoil (12.5%) In 2025, the CPC system shipped 64.8 million tons of Kazakh oil, accounting for 82.3% of the country’s total crude exports. Overall, 70.52 million tons of oil were transported through the 1,511-kilometer Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline, including 36.6 million tons from Tengiz, 17 million tons from Kashagan and 9.2 million tons from Karachaganak.
“What this means for energy security more broadly is that it highlights how suddenly vulnerable export systems become when they depend on a narrow set of transit corridors. Even a major producer can be exposed if its routes to market run through suddenly politically fragile territory,” said Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at New York-based Barnard College, in a comment to The Astana Times.
Experts say in the short term, there are no viable alternatives for Kazakhstan. Aruzhan Meirkhanova, a senior analyst at Outpost Eurasia, said the key task now is adaptation. “Existing routes cannot absorb comparable volumes, are more expensive and involve more complex logistics.
Realistically, the immediate priority is adaptation,” Meirkhanova told The Astana Times. “This means strengthening contingency planning, redirecting limited volumes through alternative routes where feasible, and deploying broader anti-crisis measures to mitigate the economic consequences of disruptions domestically,” she said.