Caspian Pipeline Consortium to pay divs from late 2020–early 2021

MOSCOW, Jul 3 (PRIME) -- Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) plans to begin paying dividends in October–December 2020 or in January–March 2021 after a decision of an annual general meeting of shareholders scheduled for no later than September, CEO Nikolai Gorban told reporters on Wednesday.

"Starting from the fourth quarter of 2020 we are ready to begin paying dividends. The shareholders will vote at the annual general meeting to decide whether it happens in the fourth quarter of 2020 or in the first quarter of 2021. The dividend policy has been developed," he said.

The multinational company pumps oil from the west of Kazakhstan to a terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The consortium’s largest shareholders are Russia with 31%, Kazakhstan with 20.75% and Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium Company with 15%.

Gorban also said that the company's debt to the shareholders amounted to less than U.S. $2 billion as of the beginning of 2019, of which $1.4 billion is to be repaid this year, and the remaining until September 2020.

CPC will send $600 million to facilities’ upgrade until 2024 to ensure deliveries of around 72.5 million tonnes of oil annually from Kazakhstan, the CEO said.

The consortium has temporarily tightened control over content of chlorides in oil in light of the Druzhba pipeline emergency, he added.

"Our system was not damaged as it is isolated and has no contact points with (Russian oil pipeline monopoly) Transneft's system. As to chlorides, we check oil every 10 days, as envisaged by the regulatory documents. Of course, when the incident happened, I ordered to do the checks more often."

The problem with the quality of oil coming from Russia to Europe across Belarus via the pipeline appeared in April. The crude was contaminated with chlorides.

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