CPC Completed Final Tie-in This Year

That was the third and final scheduled shutdown of the oil pipeline this year with the key objective of preparation for completing the initial stage of the Expansion Project and delivering the capacity of the Tengiz-Novorossiysk Pipeline.
The shutdown was implemented in several steps. Initially the entire system was shut down to allow work to be done on all scheduled sites. Work execution plans were developed to reduce the system shutdown time and minimize the oil throughput reduction.
The largest scope in terms of content and duration was to be completed at the Atyrau Pump Station in Kazakhstan. A large diameter valve was replaced and process piping was tied in to a mainline booster pump house there. Just one and a half days  later Kazakh-origin crude deliveries were resumed on the section from Tengiz to the Atyrau pump station. At the same time, on all the other sections of the oil pipeline system, installation work continued.
At the Astrakhan Pump Station, a ball valve was replaced, main work activities were completed to build a gas pipeline to a mainline pump house with a view to switching turbine fuel supply in future from diesel to gas , and some further work was done on an earlier installed mainline pump motor. In parallel, some pipeline defects identified earlier during a scheduled smart-pig run were repaired.
At the Kropotkin Pump Station, the Expansion scope completed to increase oil injections from Russian shippers included mud filters, booster pump and mainline pump piping tie-ins to the tank farm piping. Also at Kropotkin two ball valves were replaced and repairs done on some defects detected by inline inspection of the pipeline.
The scheduled shutdowns of the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline and the additional equipment tie-ins allowed the CPC pipeline system to be upgraded and prepared to support the capacity increase in the future.
The CPC pipeline system is one of the largest investment projects with foreign capital in the CIS.  The length of the pipeline connecting oil fields in Western Kazakhstan with the Marine Terminal in Novorossiysk is 1,511 km.
The CPC Project was originally developed with a view to a potential expansion of its capacity by 2 ? times up to 67 MTA (76 MTA with DRA).
The Expansion Project includes rehabilitation of 5 existing and construction of 10 additional pump stations (2 in the Republic of Kazakhstan and 8 in the Russian Federation), six crude oil storage tanks near Novorossiysk and a SPM at the CPC Marine Terminal, and also the replacement of a 88 km pipeline section in Kazakhstan with a larger diameter pipe. The total amount of the Project investments will be US$ 5.4 billion.