Drone Attacks And Fires Impact Russian Energy Infrastructure, Raising Global Concern

Russia’s energy infrastructure has reportedly been hit by the ongoing drone attacks coupled with fires over the past month, increasing the uncertainties associated with worldwide oil and gas markets. Russia and Ukraine have been targeting one another’s energy infrastructure through strikes mainly designed to disrupt the supply lines as well as logistics and to demoralize the opponent as they try to get an edge in about a two-year-old war that reflects zero signs of ending. Here are the major incidents that took place at Russia’s oil facilities over the past month:

A Russian-appointed official mentioned on January 18 that Ukraine had been trying yet failing to target a Baltic Sea oil terminal of Russia. Ukraine said it had hit the targets in St Petersburg with a domestic-built drone. Mikhail Skigin, co-owner of the oil terminal at St Petersburg, reported to the RBC media that the air defense had thwarted a gigantic catastrophe, which could result in significant human losses and ecological impairment to the Baltic Sea.

Four oil tanks at an extensive storage facility in Klintsy based in the western Bryansk region of Russia caught fire on January 19 after the military had brought down a strike drone launched by Ukraine, the regional governor mentioned. A spokesperson associated with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency refused to confirm nor deny Ukraine’s involvement. A fire tore up the Ryazan oil refinery, the third-largest in Russia, on January 19, Komsomolskaya Pravda mentioned, quoting the emergency services.

Russian energy giant Novatek January 21 was compelled to suspend some of the operations at the extensive Baltic Sea fuel export terminal located at Ust-Luga as well as technological procedures at a fuel-producing complex owing to a fire that was initiated by what the Ukrainian media mentioned to be a drone attack.

Russia is likely to cut its exports of naphtha by about 127,500 to 136,000 barrels each day, or nearly one-third of the total exports, after the fires disrupted its operations at the refineries located on the Baltic as well as the Black Seas, per traders as well as LSEG ship-tracking data. After a fire on January 26, the Tuapse oil refinery in southern Russia halted processing and producing oil, two industry individuals who knew the situation told Reuters.

According to a report from a source from Ukraine, the refinery located near the Black Sea was bombed by Ukrainian drones. Lukoil, the country’s second-largest oil producer, has ceased operations at a unit at NORSI, the country’s fourth-largest refinery. NORSI is located close to Nizhny Novgorod, around 430 kilometres east of Moscow, and was shut down following an “incident.” On January 27, Russia’s Deputy PM Alexander Novak stated that repairs would take at least a month or a half.

Russia’s air defenses prevented a drone attack on January 29 on the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery located in Yaroslavl to the northeast of Moscow, per Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor.

Reference: Reuters

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