Russia’s biggest refinery stops work after drone strike

MOSCOW: Russia’s largest oil refinery in Omsk has suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone attack, two industry sources said on Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of Kyiv’s longest-range strikes of the war.

The attack took place on Monday at the refinery in Siberia, a facility that is Russia’s leading producer of petrol. The stoppage is likely to worsen fuel shortages in the country. Anatoly Seryshev, President Vladimir Putin’s representative in Siberia, said in a statement on Tuesday that installations at the refinery had been damaged in the attack and that no employees were hurt.

He said the extent of the damage was still being evaluated and that repair work had been organised. Seryshev did not specify how the strike had affected the plant’s output. Gazprom Neft, the owner of the refinery, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Facilities at the Omsk oil refinery were damaged as a result of (Monday’s) attack. No plant personnel were injured,"

Two industry sources said a crude distillation unit known as CDU-10 caught fire and was damaged in the strike. They said the unit represents about 38pc of the refinery’s production capacity and can process 24,580 metric tons per day.

The same sources said another key unit, CDU-11, was also shut down. That unit accounts for 37pc of the refinery’s capacity and can process 24,000 tons of oil a day. They said CDU-11 was not directly struck, but network connections necessary for its operation were damaged. The sources added that the unit, which began operating in 2023, could return to service soon.

Exchange data showed that the Omsk refinery stopped offering gasoline and diesel on the Saint Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange from Tuesday. The refinery also has two mothballed primary refining units, CDU-7 and CDU-8, each with a capacity of 10,000 tons, which could theoretically be brought back online.

Source-based figures cited in the report showed the Omsk refinery processed 22 million tons of oil in 2024, or around 440,000 barrels per day. It produced 5 million tons of petrol and 8 million tons of diesel during the year.