Ukraine halted an intense campaign of drone strikes on oil tankers using the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk after a request from US Vice-President JD Vance during a call with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 31, the Financial Times reported on August 12, citing Ukrainian officials and people familiar with the matter.

Washington was alarmed that Ukraine was further destabilising oil markets and harming US companies by targeting tankers carrying crude piped from Kazakhstan to the CPC terminal, the paper said. Ukraine has not struck tankers near the terminal since the call, according to the officials and the FT's own analysis of open-source information, and has agreed not to target CPC infrastructure or non-Russian vessels as long as those ships are not under Ukrainian sanctions and are not carrying Russian oil or other Russian cargo.

"We very carefully listen to our American partners," a senior Ukrainian official told the paper, adding that Kyiv had established relevant "mechanisms" in response to the US request and that the CPC had been "a regular part of the conversation with the US and the Kazakh governments". A US official separately confirmed the administration had warned Ukraine to stop targeting non-Russian vessels and CPC infrastructure in the Black Sea, describing the pipeline as "a vital conduit of Kazakhstan-origin energy for European markets that serves as an alternative to Russian energy supplies".

As IntelliNews reported on August 10, Ukraine's commitment not to strike Kazakh-linked Black Sea oil infrastructure first emerged via a separate Bloomberg report citing a US official; the CPC pipeline carries about 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports, with Chevron owning 50% of the Tengiz field that feeds it and ExxonMobil holding 25%. An Exxon-chartered tanker was hit while waiting to load at the terminal on July 17.

The strikes had caused chaos on the route: CPC loaded just 1.3mn barrels a day in July, down more than 300,000 b/d from June and 600,000 b/d below May, according to Kpler data, more than doubling shipping rates and insurance costs in the process - CPC loadings fell to around 1.2mn-1.3mn b/d in July, some 400,000 b/d below scheduled volumes. Kazakh crude has become more important to global markets as Middle Eastern supplies remain constrained by the Iran war, and Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth said last month the company was working with the US and other governments to ensure the "pipeline stays flowing".

It is not the first time Washington has intervened to protect American business interests in Russia from Ukrainian strikes: in February, then-ambassador to the US Olha Stefanishyna said she had received a formal diplomatic complaint from the State Department following a Ukrainian strike on Novorossiysk port. A person familiar with Ukraine's position told the FT that Kyiv agreed to the latest request in part because it was seeking a US licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles domestically - a trade-off that, if confirmed, would mark one of the clearest examples yet of Ukraine's air-defence needs shaping its targeting decisions deep inside Russia.