Kremlin: Russia Not Seeking to Undermine US Business in CPC Oil Group

Russia is not seeking to undermine U.S. business interests in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

He was responding to a question about comments by several Russian experts, including on state TV, that Russia should ban oil supplies via the CPC from Kazakhstan in response to Washington's sanctions against Russia.

CPC, in which U.S. oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil are large shareholders, exports its oil from a Russian terminal on the Black Sea.

"In addition to American partners, there are also our Kazakh partners involved, and Russia remains a reliable guarantor of global energy security, despite everything," Peskov told a daily conference call with reporters.

CPC, whose terminal is located near Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, was targeted by Ukrainian drones and has had to scale back its operations due to the attacks.

Peskov accused Ukraine of "energy blackmail" over the strikes, which he said were causing Russian, U.S. and Kazakh companies to suffer.