August 2013, Vol. 240 No. 8

Projects

Caspian Pipeline Consortium Loads 3,000th Tanker

The 3,000th tanker has been loaded at the marine terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in Novorossiysk, Russia, which started operations in October 2001. The tanker, CE- Niriis, with a deadweight of 106,504 tons and owned by Marine Trust LTD of Greece, completed loading on June 26.

Since the start of operations, the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline has loaded out over 322 million tons of Kazakh and Russian crude for exports without an accident, including 30.6 million tons last year. The terminal loads tankers using two single-point moorings (SPM). A third SPM was installed as part of the CPC expansion project last year. The additional SPM will allow crude to be loaded when an SPM is taken out of service for preventive maintenance each year.

CPC Pipeline System is one of the major investment energy projects with foreign participation in the CIS. The 940-mile pipeline transports crude oil from the oil fields of western Kazakhstan to the Marine Terminal in Novorossiysk.