Firefighters take hours to put out Russian refinery blaze after Ukraine drone strike
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A Ukrainian attack on the Syzran plant is the latest in a series of damaging strikes on Russia's crude oil processing plants.
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MOSCOW - A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at a Russian oil refinery that burned for hours on March 16 before it was brought under control in the latest of several damaging strikes this week on Russia's crude oil processing plants.
Interfax news agency quoted the emergencies ministry as saying that "open burning" at the Syzran refinery had been halted, but measures were still under way to extinguish it completely.
It was not clear how the fire would affect production at the plant, which has the capacity to process 8.5 million metric tons of crude oil a year, or 170,000 barrels per day.
An attack on another refinery, Novokuibyshevsky, on March 16 was thwarted, the local governor said.
Both plants are owned by Rosneft and located in the Samara region south-east of Moscow, some 800km from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory.
A Ukrainian source told Reuters that Kyiv's SBU intelligence agency had struck three Samara region Rosneft refineries: Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky.
Russian media have not reported a strike on the Kuibyshevsky refinery, which is located in the city of Samara.
"The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation, which allows it to wage war in Ukraine," the source said.
Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to strike deep inside Russia, focusing particularly on energy infrastructure. In the past few days, such attacks have also caused fires at Lukoil's Norsi refinery Rosneft's plant in Ryazan, south-east of the capital.
Norsi's main crude distillation unit was damaged, which meant at least half of the refinery's production was stopped, industry sources told Reuters. The Ryazan plant halted units that account for about 70 per cent of its output, sources said.
Disruption to refinery operations has the potential to hit production and force up prices. Even before the latest attacks, Russia had ordered a six-month ban on gasoline exports from March 1 to help keep prices stable, amid rising demand from motorists and farmers, and to allow for maintenance.
In other incidents this week, a drone was destroyed on the outskirts of the Kirishi refinery near St Petersburg on March 12, while on March 13 the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the southern region of Rostov suspended operations briefly after downed drones fell on it.
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