Fire put out at Russia’s Volgograd refinery after drone attack

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RUSSIA, Feb 3: A drone attack targeted the Volgograd oil refinery in southern Russia on Saturday, leading to a fire that was swiftly extinguished by local authorities. This incident is part of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, where both nations have strategically aimed at each other’s energy infrastructure to disrupt supply lines and logistics, contributing to a nearly two-year-old conflict that shows no signs of resolution.

The Volgograd governor, Andrey Bocharov, reported on the local administration’s Telegram channel that there were no casualties resulting from the incident. He stated, “As a result of the fall of a downed UAV, a fire broke out at the Volgograd Oil Refinery. Fire and rescue forces quickly got to work – the fire was promptly localized, and the open burning was eliminated. There are no casualties.”

The Volgograd oil refinery, situated along the Volga River, boasts a capacity to process 14.8 million metric tons (almost 300,000 barrels per day) of crude oil annually. The refinery is owned by Lukoil, a major Russian oil producer. At the time of reporting, Lukoil has not provided an immediate response to requests for comments on the incident.

This attack adds to a series of challenges faced by Russia’s energy infrastructure, with technical failures in the past month creating additional uncertainty in global oil and gas markets already affected by the conflict in the Middle East. Another Lukoil-owned oil refinery, NORSI, also experienced outages in January, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has indicated that repairs to the refinery will take at least a month or a month and a half.

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