Crude loadings at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal on Russia’s Black Sea coast have again been disrupted following inspections.

But brokers have dismissed speculation that the government is “weaponising” exports from the facility.

Reuters reported that the terminal suspended oil loadings from two of three single mooring points (SPM) at CPC earlier in August.

“CPC suspended loadings from SPM-2 since August 17 due to inspection and SPM-1 has been offline since earlier this month due to the same reason,” a source said.

Tankers have continued to use SPM-3.

CPC exports a blend of 90% Kazakhstani and 10% Russian crude.

Volumes have not yet been greatly affected due to a lower than expected supply via CPC amid maintenance at two major Kazakh oil fields, Tengiz and Kashagan, sources said.

CPC confirmed the outages on Monday, giving dates of 5 and 17 August.

“Divers discovered cracks in subsea hose attachments to buoyancy tanks. There is no threat to the flora and fauna of the Black sea. The integrity of the equipment remains intact,” the company said.

US class society ABS strongly recommended suspending operations until the buoyancy tanks could be replaced.

ABS said “exceptionally adverse weather conditions” had been observed during the 2021-2022 winter season, which could have caused the damage that was discovered.

Loadings were previously halted after storm damage in March.

“The use of the single SPM will allow owners to meet shipper nominations with reduced volumes,” CPC added.

French shipbroker Barry Rogliano Salles (BRS) said: “Considering that 90% of the crude exported from the terminal is Kazakhstani rather than Russian, this has raised suspicions that Russia is weaponising exports from the terminal.”

“However, this does not appear to be the case this time and…the cracks stem from storm damage sustained earlier this year,” the company added.

BRS said the terminal shipped around 1.1m barrels per day over the past month as Kazakhstani production dropped.