Ukrainian drones attack the largest gas processing plant in southern Russia
9 October 11:15
On the night of October 9, Ukrainian drones launched a massive attack on the Volgograd region. According to the governor of the region, Andrey Bocharov, several fires broke out at fuel and energy facilities in the Kotovsky district as a result of the wreckage of the downed drones, [Komersant ] reports, citing Russian media.
“Firefighters who quickly arrived at the scene are currently extinguishing the fires,” he said, without specifying which companies were affected by the attack.
Local residents reported the fire at the Korobkovsky gas processing plant, which is owned by Lukoil and is the largest natural gas processor in Russia’s Southern Federal District. This is confirmed by data from NASA’s fire monitoring system. Also, according to satellite images, the Efimovka oil pumping station, which is part of the infrastructure of Transneft-Privolga JSC, caught fire in the Volgograd region. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 19 Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russian territory last night, nine of them over Volgograd region.
Since the beginning of August, the Ukrainian armed forces have been consistently attacking Russian energy infrastructure, such as oil stations, oil and gas refineries, with drones. Over the past two months, one in three Russian refineries has been hit by Ukrainian drones. In September, at least four refineries were completely or partially shut down due to drones. Among them are the Novokuibyshevsk refinery, Gazprom’s Astrakhan refinery, and Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery, which is among the top 5 in the country and supplies fuel to the Moscow region. In the first week of October, five more refineries were hit.
As a result, in October, oil refining in Russia fell to 4.86 million barrels per day, down 484 thousand barrels, or almost 10% compared to July, Bloomberg reported. Residents of more than 20 regions from Sakhalin to Nizhny Novgorod faced fuel shortages. In four regions – Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk regions, and Crimea – restrictions were imposed on the sale of gasoline to “one person”. To ease the crisis, the government has banned the export of gasoline and diesel fuel abroad, increased purchases from Belarus, and is preparing to start importing gasoline from China, Singapore, and South Korea.
