OREANDA-NEWS. April 01, 2011. Caspian Pipeline Consortium has successfully completed an audit of the performance of CPC’s environmental management and health & safety management system and its compliance with ISO 140001:2004 and OHSAS 18001:2007, reported the press-centre of CPC.

The audit was carried out by BSI, the British Standards Institute, an authorized international certification organization. The audit confirmed the earlier issued certificates for the system covering all operational activities of CPC in all its units across Russia and Kazakhstan.

The confirmation of CPC's certification of compliance with globally-recognized standards indicates that the company has a management system in place to ensure compliance with national laws of Russia and Kazakhstan, identifies and continuously monitors environmental aspects of its operations and occupational and professional risk factors on a regular basis.

“Care for ecology, matters of safety, in all its aspects, has an absolute priority in the consortium's activities, said Nikolai Platonov, CPC General Director, upon completion of the audit. - Today, on the threshold of launching the CPC Expansion Project, this area of activity has special importance. The confirmation by a recognized certification organization of correctness and effectiveness of our actions aimed to prevent environmental and health and safety impacts inspires in us additional confidence in a successful expansion of capacity and throughput through the CPC pipeline system while meeting all industrial and environmental safety standards, and, most importantly, without any negative impact on health and safety and the environment”.

The Expansion Project is expected to increase the CPC capacity up to 67 million tons per year. The Expansion Project includes upgrading the existing pump stations and building 10 new additional ones (2 in Kazakhstan and 8 in Russia), six oil storage tanks near Novorossiysk and a third single point mooring at the CPC Marine Terminal, and also the replacement of an 88 km pipeline section in Kazakhstan with a larger diameter pipe.

CPC Shareholders: Russian Federation (represented by Transneft – 24% and CPC Company – 7 %) – 31%; Republic of Kazakhstan (represented by KMG – 19% and Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures LLC – 1.75%) – 20.75%; Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium Company - 15%, LUKARCO B.V. - 12.5%, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company – 7.5%, Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Limited – 7.5%, BG Overseas Holding Limited - 2%, Eni International N.A. N.V. - 2% and Oryx Caspian Pipeline LLC – 1.75%.