Drone attacks on tankers disrupt loadings on the Caspian pipeline route that carries about 80 percent of Kazakhstan's oil exports

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, known as CPC, suspended oil loadings at its terminal at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk after drone attacks on tankers. According to published reports, the Nordic Zenith, a tanker chartered by ExxonMobil, was hit on 17 July 2026; two further tankers, the ASIA and the NISSOS IOS, were attacked on 19 July, one of which caught fire; and on 20 July a fourth tanker was attacked during loading, disrupting operations again.

CPC carries about 80 percent of Kazakhstan's crude exports through a 1,510 kilometre pipeline running from the Tengiz field to Novorossiysk, and the total flow exposed to disruption has been estimated at roughly 1.5 million barrels a day of Kazakh and Russian oil. Kazakhstan said on 21 July that it would stop piping oil to the Black Sea.

The disruption was one of the drivers of the weekly jump in crude prices in the week to 24 July and, alongside the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, marks a third energy export chokepoint under pressure at the same time.