Crude oil exports and transit from Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk were suspended on Feb. 24 due to a storm and will fail to fulfil the February loading plan in full amid weather related delays, market and shipping sources said on Monday.

As of February 27, the port has still to load four Suezmax vessels of 140,000 tonnes each and two Aframaxes of some 80,000 tonnes each from loading plan for this month. Most of these volumes will be carried forward to March, the sources added.

Another two Aframaxes planned for loading from Novorossiisk late in February were excluded from the plan, as bad weather hampers discharge of crude oil from vessels in Bulgaria, the sources said.

Urals, KEBCO and Siberian Light loadings from Novorossiisk in February were set at 2.38 million tonnes, above 2.18 million tonnes in the January plan.

Novorossisisk has also loaded in February some 0.28 million tonnes of crude oil from January loading plan, as two Suezmax vessels from the January schedule were carried forward to February.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters. Editing by Jane Merriman)