MOSCOW (Reuters) – Kazakhstan Railways will ban transportation of oil products to the Russian Black Sea port of Taman starting from May 8, according to a document from the state-owned railway operator seen by Reuters on Thursday.
No reasons for the ban were disclosed in the document, which was issued to cargo shippers.
Russian Railways has also restricted rail deliveries to Taman starting from Wednesday this week until further notice after Russian officials said a fuel depot had caught fire near a crucial bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea.
Taman’s oil transhipment hub, which lies across the Kerch Strait from Crimea, at the mouth of the Azov Sea and Black Sea, has the capacity to handle 20 million tonnes of crude oil, oil products and liquefied petroleum gas a year.
In 2022, it handled 7.3 million tonnes of oil products from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
The port of Taman boosted exports of oil products in the first quarter by 15% from the same period in 2022 to 2.775 million tonnes, according to port sources.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Susan Fenton)
