MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium has temporarily suspended the operation of two single point moorings, SPM-1 and SPM-2, at its marine terminal near Novorossiysk due to defects discovered, with the volumes of crude oil loaded reduced, only SPM-3 used, the company said in a statement on Monday.

In August 2022, while performing scheduled maintenance on SPM-1 and SPM-2, divers discovered cracks in subsea hose attachments to buoyancy tanks. CPC immediately contacted the SPM manufacturer and an organization that supervises safe operation of equipment, the ABS classification society, who "strongly recommended that the operation of the SPMs should be suspended until the buoyancy tanks were replaced," the statement said.

"The shareholders of the company were notified about the defects on the buoyancy tanks 1 and 2 on August 5 and 17 respectively. The CPC Marine Terminal is temporarily loading crude oil by using only SPM-3," the company said, adding that the use of the single SPM will allow meeting shipper nominations with reduced volumes.

"The ABS classification society, in particular, stressed that exceptionally adverse weather conditions had been observed during the 2021-2022 winter season, which could have caused the damage that was discovered. As a reminder, it was the abnormal storms that caused the damage to some sections of floating hoses in March 2022," the statement said.

There is no threat to the flora and fauna of the Black Sea, while the integrity of the equipment remains intact, the company stressed.

Caspian Pipeline Consortium reported on March 21 that after weather improvement and cessation of related extreme stresses during loading operations the company carried out examination of the marine terminal single point mooring equipment, which revealed damage in the form of displacement of the reinforcement carcass of one of the SPM-3 floating hoses. After that it was decided to decommission temporarily the single point mooring for flushing and repair.

On the following day the company announced suspension of another single point mooring.

On April 24, CPC said it had relaunched SPM-2 at the marine terminal near Novorossiysk after repairs, whereas in late May the company said all three single point moorings at the terminal were operational.