Ukraine Strikes Lukoil’s Volgograd Refinery as Drone Attacks Resume

Ukraine has struck one of Russia’s biggest refineries, Lukoil’s Volgograd processing facility, the Ukrainian forces said on Friday as they resumed attacks on Russian refining capacity.

The Volgograd refinery, which has the capacity to process 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, produces gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. It was hit by Ukrainian forces, Ukraine’s Security Service said in a Telegram post on Friday.

The hit was “successful,” Ukraine said, without offering details as to the extent of damage.

Andrei Bocharov, the governor of Russia’s Volgograd region, said on Friday that a fire broke out at an industrial facility in the fuel and energy complex in the region following a mass drone attack. Bocharov did not name the site.

This is not the first strike on the Volgograd refinery, which early this year had to suspend crude oil processing after a Ukrainian drone attack triggered a fire at the plant.

The renewed drone attacks on refineries from Ukraine come after several weeks of a lull, during which Ukrainian forces focused on hitting tankers in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

The brief respite in the attacks on refineries allowed some units to resume operations after repairs. This past weekend, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that the fuel crisis in Russia had started to ease as some refineries have restarted operations.

However, this week Russia extended the ban on gasoline and diesel exports from July 31 to the end of the year in a sign that the situation has not improved too much.

Amid peak demand season, Russia has been suffering from gasoline and diesel shortages for nearly three months, as Ukraine’s drone campaign to strike Russian refineries forced many large processing sites offline in the spring and early summer.

The overnight attack on the Volgograd refinery could now worsen the crisis.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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