Severe drone attacks. Ukraine paralyzes Russia's oil industry

Crude oil processing has been suspended at the Ryazan refinery, and in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, oil loading is delayed by two-three days due to damage from Ukrainian drone attacks, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

– The plant (i.e. the refinery in Ryazan – PAP) will probably not be operational until the end of the month. No loadings of petroleum products are planned before December 1, one of the sources said.

The governor of the Ryazan region, Pavel Malkov, wrote on Telegram on Saturday that “fragments of an unmanned aircraft caused a fire in one of the industrial facilities.” He did not specify which facility he was talking about.

The port of Novorossiysk and the nearby terminal of the Caspian Oil Pipeline Consortium, through which a fifth of Russia's crude is exported, suspended operations after the drone attack on Friday. In Novorossiysk, two moorings serving Suezmax tankers with a deadweight capacity of 140,000 tonnes were damaged. tone.

“The loading of Suezmax-class tankers has been moved to bay 1A and bay 1 is still closed,” the second source said.

According to another specialist, the attack could also delay the export of Kazakh oil through Novorossiysk by a day or two.

Industry sources say the port may resume full operations by the end of November, provided that loading operations are not interrupted by storms.

The Ukrainian attack on the port of Novorossiysk was – so far – the one that caused the most damage to Russia's oil export infrastructure in the Black Sea, Reuters emphasized.

In October, Russia exported 3.22 million tons of oil, or 760,000 tons, through the port of Novorossiysk. barrels per day. (PAP)

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