OREANDA-NEWS. Caspian Pipeline Consortium loaded a record quantity of crude oil from its Marine Terminal in March. It loaded 3.293 mln tons, which is a new monthly record since the system started operating.

A total of over 349 mln tons of oil has been loaded since the start of operations.

That achievement was made possible by the gradual commissioning of additional facilities under the CPC Expansion Project. Last February a new single point mooring (SPM-3) was commissioned at the Marine Terminal to operate with two existing ones.

CPC First Deputy General Director, Operations, Dennis Fahy commented: “We are in the process of commissioning numerous new facilities at existing pump station locations which will result in significant crude oil throughput increases this year. The testing of such systems has shown more than a 15% increase in throughput capacity for Caspian volumes. Additionally, CPC will begin commissioning new pump stations later this year which will bring about the next tranche of new capacity for CPC.”

CPC pipeline system is one of the largest investment projects in the energy industry with participation of foreign capital on the CIS territory. The length of the pipeline connecting the oil fields in Western Kazakhstan with the Marine Terminal near Novorossiysk is 1,511 km. CPC Marine Terminal is equipped with single point moorings which allow for safe tanker lifting at a considerable distance from the shore, also when the weather conditions are unfavorable.

The Expansion Project includes rehabilitation of 5 existing and construction of 10 additional pump stations (2 in the Republic of Kazakhstan and 8 in the Russian Federation), six new storage tanks (100,000 each) in addition to the existing four near Novorossiysk and a third SPM at the CPC Marine Terminal, and also the replacement of an 88 km pipeline section in Kazakhstan with a larger diameter pipe. The total amount of the Project investments will be USD 5.4 billion.