Drone attacks trigger fuel leak at Primorsk and fire at Russia’s NORSI refinery

MOSCOW: A fuel reservoir leaked at Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and a fire broke out at the NORSI oil refinery after drone attacks, Russian authorities said on Sunday.

Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian energy facilities over the past month in an effort to damage a major source of Russian revenue and weaken its military capacity.

Alexander Drozdenko, governor of Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, first said a pipeline had been damaged at Primorsk, one of the country’s main oil export outlets. He later revised that account in a post on Telegram, saying the pipeline had not been hit and that a fuel reservoir in the port area began leaking after being struck by shrapnel.

Primorsk is one of Russia’s biggest export gateways and has the capacity to handle 1 million barrels per day. Reuters reported on Thursday, citing US commercial satellite images it had seen, that Ukrainian drone attacks last month put at least 40% of the port’s storage facilities out of action.

At one stage last month, about 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity was offline because of the attacks, the shutdown of a pipeline in Ukraine and the seizure of Russia-linked tankers.

Fire reported at major refinery

In a separate development on Sunday, Gleb Nikitin, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, said on Telegram that a drone attack caused a fire at the NORSI oil refinery, which is Russia’s fourth-largest refinery. He said two facilities at the plant were struck.

Nikitin added that a power station and several houses were damaged in the attack, but said preliminary information showed there were no injuries.

NORSI is also Russia’s second-largest gasoline producer. The refinery can process 16 million metric tons of oil annually, equivalent to around 320,000 barrels per day.

Alert in Novorossiysk

Elsewhere, Andrey Kravchenko, mayor of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest Black Sea port city, said an air alert had been declared because of the threat of incoming drones.

Oil loading operations are usually halted during such alerts, including at the terminal used for Kazakhstan’s oil exports through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

He later said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that the pipeline was not damaged, but a fuel reservoir in the port area leaked when it was hit by shrapnel.

He said a power station and several houses were damaged during the attack, although there were no injuries according to preliminary information.