Kazakhstan increased its oil shipments to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk by 27% in August compared with the previous month, sending 460,000 tons, national oil pipeline operator KazTransOil confirmed.

According to KazTransOil, 360,000 tons of Kazakh oil were transported through the route in July, The Caspian Post reports, citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.

At the same time, Kazakhstan’s oil deliveries to Russia’s Ust-Luga port declined to 200,000 tons in August from 286,000 tons in July.

KazTransOil uses two main routes to transport Kazakh crude to Russian export terminals.

Through the northern route, oil from major fields such as Kashagan and Tengiz is carried through KazTransOil’s pipeline network to the Russian border via the Atyrau-Samara section. At Samara, the crude enters Transneft’s pipeline system before being transported to the Sheskharis oil terminal at the port of Novorossiysk.

The second route is a multimodal corridor through the Caspian Sea. Under this route, oil is loaded onto tankers at the port of Aktau and transported to Makhachkala. There, it is transferred to Russia’s pipeline network and sent via the Makhachkala-Tikhoretsk-Novorossiysk route to the final marine terminal.