Ukraine Says It Attacked Lukoil’s Volgograd Refinery
(Bloomberg) -- Ukraine struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, threatening to disrupt fuel supplies again as strikes on the country’s downstream industry resumed.
Ukraine’s Security Service said on Telegram that it targeted facilities at Lukoil PJSC’s refinery in the Volgograd region, without indicating the extent of the damage. The attack resulted in a fire at the facility, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a separate message.
Kyiv has intensified attacks on Russian refineries this year, helping drive the country’s crude processing rates to multiyear lows and contributing to a nationwide fuel shortage this summer. Many Russian regions had to ration gasoline and diesel sales at filling stations, while the government banned most exports of motor-fuel.
Russia didn’t specifically confirm the attack on the refinery, but Volgograd Governor Andrey Bocharov said earlier Friday that a fire broke out at an industrial facility in the region’s fuel and energy complex following a mass drone attack, without identifying the site.
Satellite imagery of the Volgograd refinery by NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System shows several freshly hit anomalies at the facility site, which indicate fires.
The Volgograd refinery is one of Russia’s largest, with a design processing capacity of about 300,000 barrels of crude a day. It has been targeted repeatedly by Ukraine and had only recently restored throughput, nearly recovering its runs to levels seen before earlier strikes.
Lukoil’s press service didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A lull in Ukrainian attacks over the past few weeks had given several drone-hit refineries time to complete repairs and resume operations, helping improve fuel supplies to the domestic market before the latest strike.
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