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Context

Seven explosive-packed drones hit a pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which carries Kazakh oil across southern Russia for export via the Black Sea

About Caspian Pipeline Consortium

CPC is a $2.6 billion project. It consists of a 935-mile crude oil pipeline. It runs from the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

The construction began in 1999, commissioned in 2001, and a $5.1 billion expansion project was completed in 2018.

It is a key East-West pipeline. It will carry oil from the Caspian Sea region to international markets.

CPC includes the Russian and Kazakh governments, as well as Western energy majors Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell.

This pipeline accounts for two-thirds of Kazakhstan's oil exports.

As a whole Caspian Pipeline Consortium is composed of eleven companies. Russian companies own 36.5% of shares of the consortium.

The capacity of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium is 1.4 million barrels per day of oil. This is 2.3 percent of global seaborne oil trade.

About Caspian Sea

 It is an enclosed water body without any direct outlet to the ocean, so it is not sea but a lake.

Earth's largest inland body of water, when measured by surface area.

Bordered by five countries: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia.

The sea is also known for its abundance of energy resources (oil and natural gas reserves in offshore fields and onshore on the coast of the sea).

It is the source of most of the world’s caviar.

Sources:

THE HINDU