Turkey is reported to have halted crude-oil flows to the Ceyhan export terminal as a precaution following a devastating earthquake.
State pipeline operator Botas is said to have made the decision on Monday morning after an earthquake in eastern Turkey, which was followed hours later by another, reported Bloomberg.
The Tribeca shipping agency said in a notice that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan terminal (BTC) at Ceyhan that exports Azeri crude oil would be closed through Wednesday pending damage assessments, reported Reuters.
Azerbaijan uses the Ceyhan terminal as its main crude export hub, with a flow of about 650,000 barrels per day (bpd).
ING Bank said Brent managed to break back above $80 per barrel on Monday on the back of supply concerns after the deadly earthquake.
“Pipeline infrastructure which carries both Iraqi and Azerbaijani crude oil to the Ceyhan terminal in Turkey passes through the region hit by the earthquake,” the Dutch bank said.
“The Ceyhan oil terminal has reportedly been shut as a result, and whilst there has been no damage reported to pipelines, flows from at least Iraq appear to have been halted as a precaution.”
ING Bank said exports of Azerbaijani and Iraqi crude oil via the Ceyhan oil terminal have been in the region of 1m barrels per day.
The bank added that it was not clear when the terminal would resume operations.
“Overall, Ceyhan accounts for 2.4% of total global seaborne crude oil exports, but it is disproportionally important for cross-Mediterranean aframax and suezmax trades,” Ralph Leszczynski, Banchero Costa’s Singapore-based head of research told TradeWinds.
“Of the 49m tonnes of crude oil shipped from Ceyhan in 2022, 29m tonnes arrived by pipeline from Azerbaijan, and 19m tonnes were from Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq and Syria.
“Around 63% of exports from Ceyhan last year were loaded on aframaxes, and 37% were loaded on suezmaxes,” he added.
In terms of destinations, 70% of shipments from Ceyhan went to the European Union last year — including 39% to Italy and 11% to Greece — 7% to Israel, 6% to Egypt and 5% to India.
For Italy, Turkey is the second largest exporter of crude after Russia, accounting for 19.5% of total crude imports to Italy in 2022.
“The BTC pipeline itself arrives to Ceyhan from the north rather than from the east, thus avoiding the epicentre of the earthquake which was just east of Ceyhan Terminal, and this no doubt avoided any serious damage to the pipeline,” said Leszczyjski.
On Monday, TradeWinds reported that no specific information has been forthcoming about the status of an ultra-modern floating storage and regasification (FSRU) unit nearby.
The 170,000-cbm Ertugrul Gazi (built 2021) is berthed at Doryol in Turkey’s southern province of Hatay, close to the Syrian border.
Botas, which operates the Ertugrul Gazi, didn’t respond to a request on Monday to comment specifically on the FSRU’s operations.
At least 4,000 people are reported to have died in Turkey and neighbouring Syria, while millions are said to have been left without power following the two earthquakes.
