Home/Press Center/Mass Media about Us/Russia’s Oil Foothold in the Caspian

CPC guarantees efficient and environmentally safe movement of crude oil

The Project is designed to increase the trunk pipeline capacity

Russia’s Oil Foothold in the Caspian

Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is an international crude oil transportation company with its oil pipeline system crossing Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan (Tengiz-Novorossiysk, 1511 km). The CPC route is rightly considered to be one of the most reliable and profitable crude transportation lines from the Caspian/Black Sea region to the world markets. CPC is a project of international infrastructure, including Dutch/British “Shell”, Italian “Eni”, British “British Gas”, US oil companies “Chevron” and “ExxonMobil”, state companies of the Russian Federation and Republic of Kazakhstan. This makes the project unique. Oil giants work together for a common goal. On the eve of the Oilman’s Day we talk to CPC General Director Nikolay Brunich, who told us about the Consortium activities, including cooperation with supervisory authorities.

- CPC is famous in the industry for its serious attitude towards state-of-the-art technologies and modern approaches to both, crude oil transportation and construction of new facilities of oil pipeline system. What technical progress means for CPC?

- In its daily business the Consortium tries to be most efficient in the interests of the Shareholders and states, hosting the Company facilities. The criteria for the Company efficient performance are, first of all, uninterrupted and accident-free operation of the pipeline system, scheduled transportation of crude oil from West Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk and its timely loading onto tankers.
CPC is a unique project of international infrastructure, combining major foreign oil companies, state companies of Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan. Therefore, CPC today is a modern powerful mechanism, a fusion of the best practices and advance technologies. New developments are introduced in all operation sectors, including environment. In particular, CPC uses fiber/optical automated supervisory control and data acquisition system – SCADA for its operations. Its main purpose is to provide day-to-day monitoring and control of crude oil pumping, facilities of the system throughout its length, oil pipeline, pump stations, Marine Terminal. This system records in real time the condition of the pipeline by all parameters and facilitates its safe operation. Another modern environmental facility was put into operation at the Marine Terminal near Novorossiysk – oil-containing waste water treatment plant, which was developed and installed, using advance technologies of oil-containing waste water treatment. The plant consists of many various treatment stages and provides high waste water treatment efficiency.

- The Company implements the Expansion Project for the purpose of increasing the oil pipeline throughput from 32 to 67 million tons of oil per year. At the Expansion Project, construction/installation, startup/adjustment work is nearing completion, the time is approaching to commission the facilities. How does the interaction with the supervisory authorities go?

- It is CPC priority to operate in strict compliance with the legislation regarding operation and construction of hazardous industrial facilities within the framework of urban development regulatory documents. A third-party technical control of customer has been put in place, managing companies provide continuous monitoring of subcontractor performance and progress at the construction sites. Designer supervision over the implementation of design solutions is always performed. Such operation arrangements made it possible to upgrade, as scheduled, 5 oil pump stations and commission them at a high safety level. The staff of the Federal Service for Environmental, Process and Nuclear Supervision conduct scheduled and unscheduled audits of compliance with the urban development and other legislation, industrial safety design documentation. CPC-R rectifies timely and in full scope all findings and non-compliances with certain solutions and regulatory requirements. There is every reason to believe that the acquired experience and comments received from the Rostekhnadzor employees will enable CPC-R to complete successfully the construction of the remaining Expansion facilities within the timeline approved by the RF Government.
CPC Expansion Project set up a special team to interact with the specialists of the supervisory authorities, which manages the preparation of relevant units for audits of the built facility compliance with the design documentation and technical regulations. The team coordinates the delivery of the completed facilities and as-built documentation, takes part in the proceedings of commissions, consultations before and after audits. Such operation arrangements made it possible to identify weaknesses at the preparatory stages and in the course of audits, to take action on clarification of the findings recorded in the audit reports.

Tekhnadzor