An article on August 12 in the Financial Times says that U.S. Vice President JD Vance had warned Ukrainian President Zelensky against firing on oil tankers using Russian ports. This was after a major incident in which Ukrainian drones had hit a tanker carrying crude piped from Kazakhstan to a Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal in the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Vance made the call to Zelensky on July 31. Since then Ukraine has not struck tankers near the CPC port.
FT reports that the then-Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, had received a démarche from the State Department in February, following a drone strike on the Novorossiysk port last year. Ukraine’s attacks in July caused chaos in the port, forcing Kazakhstan to stop piping oil and more than doubling shipping rates and insurance. Much of the Kazakh oil is owned by Chevron, so this was directly affecting the U.S. company’s profits. Last month Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth said the company was working with the U.S. and other governments to ensure that “the pipeline stays flowing.”
