Caspian pipeline drops Kashagan oil from Oct schedule - trade

* CPC (Taiwan OTC: 1597.TWO - news) to increase oil supplies in October due to more Tengiz volumes

* Kashagan halted production in September due to an accident

MOSCOW, Oct (KOSDAQ: 039200.KQ - news) 9 (Reuters) - The Caspian pipeline CPC will not ship oil from the newly launched Kashagan oilfield in Kazakhstan in October, increasing Tengiz blend shipments instead, traders said on Wednesday, in a new blow for the multi-billion project.

Kashagan oilfield, one of the world's largest oil finds in decades, was launched on September 11 after years of delay, but just two weeks later it was shut due to a gas leak. Production was restarted last Sunday.

Initially, CPC planned to ship 138,500 tonnes of Kashagan oil this month. But the traders said there would be no flows from the field via the pipeline in October.

The final exports by the CPC will be increased to 2,947 million tonnes in October from 2.629 million tonnes previously planned for this month thanks to additional volumes of Tengiz blend. This is also up from 2.477 million tonnes in September.

CPC is an important route for the oil from Kashagan, an offshore oil project in the Caspian Sea. The difficulties in pumping oil from Kashagan create a logistical nightmare for the project, developed by international majors.

Last month an official at Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, a stakeholder at CPC, said the pipeline will only be ready for commercial oil flows from Kashagan in the spring.