ASTANA, February 20. /TASS/. The objective of Ukraine’s drone attack on the oil pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) was to hurt Kazakhstan economically, believes Nikita Shatalov, a deputy of the Majilis (lower house) of the Kazakh parliament.
"Obviously, the Ukrainian side could not help but know that 90% of the oil that passes through this pipeline is Kazakh, produced at our Tengiz field, and various Western companies that export raw materials to the EU benefit from it. <...> We can say that the goal of the attack was to damage our economic interests specifically," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
He noted that this is an international pipeline, with stakeholders like Kazakhstan's KazMunayGas, US’ Chevron and ExxonMobil, as well as Italy's Eni, all of whom "are interested in stable supplies."
"I think that those who made the decision to attack the infrastructure of the international consortium must be punished for this crime against our interests. Kazakhstan will hold the Ukrainian side accountable for the losses incurred, for this act of aggression which came out of nowhere and calls into question the Kazakh-Ukrainian relations," the deputy noted.
Shatalov recalled that "Kazakhstan has maintained neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the very beginning," and Astana has not severed diplomatic contacts with Kiev.
On February 17, the largest oil pumping station on the CPC, Kropotkinskaya, was attacked by drones controlled by the Ukrainian military. The Investigative Committee of Russia initiated a criminal case for an attack on a civilian facility. Transneft, the Russian stakeholder in the international consortium, reported that the station was damaged, and that repairing it could take 1.5-2 months, adding that the pumping of oil from Kazakhstan could decrease by 30% during the restoration period. The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan stated that oil was being pumped through the CPC according to schedule without restrictions, and the Tengiz-Novorossiysk main oil pipeline was launched bypassing the Kropotkinskaya station. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan reported that they intend to discuss the attack on the oil pumping station with the Ukrainian side. Oil industry experts believe that the damage from the attack could amount to $2 billion.