On Tuesday, a Russian judge in the town of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast ordered the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to halt shipments for 30 days. Suspension of operations was sought as punishment for a number of “documentary violations” under CPC’s Oil Spill Response Plan, which the company had been given until the end of November to rectify.

Although the facility is in Russia, about 90% of the crude that passes through it comes from Kazakhstan. That makes it an ideal weapon in President Vladimir Putin’s arsenal to inflict economic pain on his tormentors. Halting CPC will remove as much as 1.5 million barrels a day of much-needed crude from the global oil market, while barely denting Russia’s own flows…

As much as two-thirds of CPC Blend exports typically end up in Europe, with significant volumes directed to Central Europe through pipelines from the Italian port of Trieste. The impact on the Mediterranean crude market, in particular, where the supply is already the tightest it has been in years, would be severe.