Due to UAV strikes: two more Russian oil refineries have suspended operations
22 April 13:19
The Novokuybyshevsk and Tuapse oil refineries (both owned by Rosneft) have halted oil processing due to drone strikes, Reuters reports, citing industry sources, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
According to the agency’s sources, the Tuapse refinery, the only one on Russia’s Black Sea coast, has been shut down since April 16, when drones attacked the port of Tuapse. A second attack took place on April 20. As a result, port infrastructure and oil storage tanks were damaged, and by Tuesday, smoke from the fire had spread 300 km and reached Stavropol.
Unable to ship products to the port, the Tuapse refinery shut down its sole oil processing unit with a capacity of 12 million tons per year, sources told Reuters.
The Novokuybyshevsk refinery, with a capacity of 8.3 million tons per year, was shut down on April 18. The plant, which produced 1.1 million tons of gasoline, 1.6 million tons of diesel, and 1.3 million tons of fuel oil last year, came under attack on Saturday. As a result, both primary oil refining units—AVT-11 and AVT-9—were shut down, Reuters sources said.
Earlier this month, the NORSI refinery, which ranks fourth in Russia in terms of refining capacity and supplies fuel to the Moscow region, among others, was hit by a drone strike. It stopped accepting crude oil on April 5 and subsequently ceased listing gasoline and diesel for trading on the St. Petersburg Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange. The plant, with a capacity of 17 million tons per year, which produced over 5 million tons of gasoline and the same amount of diesel last year, is unlikely to resume operations until the end of April, Reuters sources said.
On March 21, Rosneft’s Saratov refinery suspended crude oil intake due to a drone attack, and on March 26, the Kirishinefteorgsintez (Kinef) refinery in the Leningrad region—which ranks second in Russia in terms of refining capacity and first in the European part of the country—did the same.
