Kazakhstan Railways will ban transportation of oil products to the Russian Black Sea port of Taman starting from May 8, according to a document from the state-owned railway operator seen by Reuters on Thursday.
No reasons for the ban were disclosed in the document, which was issued to cargo shippers.
Traders said the terminal continued to handle oil products and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
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Russian Railways has also restricted rail deliveries to Taman starting from Wednesday this week until further notice after Russian officials said a fuel depot had caught fire near a crucial bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea.
Taman’s oil transhipment hub, which lies across the Kerch Strait from Crimea, at the mouth of the Azov Sea and Black Sea, has the capacity to handle 20 million tonnes of crude oil, oil products and LPG a year.
In 2022, it handled 7.3 million tonnes of oil products from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
The port of Taman boosted exports of oil products in the first quarter by 15% from the same period in 2022 to 2.775 million tonnes, according to port sources.
Kazakhstan’s exports via Taman last year reached over 1 million tonnes of fuel oil, around 230,000 tonnes of LPG and some 74,000 tonnes of vacuum gasoil.
Three traders said the Tanamneftegaz terminal continued transhipment of oil products and LPG.
“Taman is working, the transhipment of heavy (petroleum products) and LPG has been resumed, there is no ban on exports from Kazakhstan until May 8,” a trader said after operations were temporarily suspended after the incident on Wednesday.
“There is an accumulation of rail cars on the approaches to the port, but we hope that by May 8 the situation will stabilize, the ban will be lifted.”
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Susan Fenton and Mark Potter)
