Vance Urges Zelenskyy to Halt Strikes on CPC Oil Facilities
US Vice President JD Vance told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Kyiv must halt attacks on Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) facilities in the Black Sea, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing US and Ukrainian officials.
On Saturday, Bloomberg reported that at Washington’s request, Ukraine had agreed to stop attacks on non-Russian tankers and CPC facilities in the Black Sea used for shipping oil from Kazakhstan.
According to Financial Times sources, Vance conveyed the request to Zelenskyy in a telephone conversation on 31 July. Since then, Kyiv has not attacked oil tankers near the CPC terminal.
“We listen very carefully to our American partners,” an unnamed senior Ukrainian official told the newspaper.
The US is reportedly concerned about Ukraine’s actions because the attacks are disrupting oil market stability and harming American companies involved in shipping oil from Kazakhstan.
Kyiv reportedly agreed to halt attacks on CPC infrastructure and non-Russian tankers on the condition that the vessels are not subject to Ukrainian sanctions and do not transport Russian oil.
On 19 July, two tankers were targeted in drone strikes at the CPC maritime terminal in the Black Sea. The vessels, sailing under the flags of Liberia (ASIA) and the Marshall Islands (NISSOS IOS), had international crews, CPC said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of seeking to cause irreparable damage to the consortium. The ministry described the attacks on civilian vessels at the CPC terminal as an attack on the interests of the consortium’s member states.
“Kyiv does not care about the economic losses inflicted on the US and Europe and shows no concern for its partners, including Kazakhstan,” the ministry said.
Russia called on the international community to condemn Kyiv’s attacks on the tankers.
CPC is a consortium of energy companies and a 1,511-kilometre oil pipeline. The pipeline transports crude oil from major oil fields in Kazakhstan, such as Tengiz, to a maritime terminal in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea in Russia for export to world markets.
The pipeline carries around 80 per cent of Kazakhstan’s total crude oil exports and transports about one per cent of total global crude oil supply.