The Sheskharis oil terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk halted export transshipment of crude after a drone attack, three industry sources told Reuters. One source said that early on August 14, a tanker scheduled to berth for loading turned around and headed to open sea because of the threat of an attack.
The port then suspended oil loading and intake at the terminal, as storage tanks were full. Later in the day, the Novorossiysk administration announced another air raid alert over the threat of a drone attack.
Sheskharis is Russia's main oil export terminal on the Black Sea, capable of transshipping about 700,000 barrels of crude per day. Novorossiysk handles Russian Urals crude, Kazakh KEBCO blend, and light Siberian Light oil.
According to a source familiar with export statistics, June oil loadings via Novorossiysk were near a record level of about 1 million barrels per day (over 4.3 million tonnes for the month). In July, the figure was roughly 800,000 barrels per day (about 3.4 million tonnes).
The halt in loading and intake compounded disruptions at the port of Novorossiysk. Earlier, after a Ukrainian drone attack on the night of August 12, three grain terminals there stopped operations. In July, attacks disrupted work at the nearby Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal, which exports CPC Blend crude.