Defense Forces Strike Samara Oil Facility as Large Fire Breaks Out

Ukraine’s Defense Forces carried out their second strike in a month on the Samara linear production and dispatch station (LPDS) in Russia’s Samara Region.

The monitoring community Exilenova+ published footage showing a large fire at the facility.

Samara LPDS

The Samara linear production and dispatch station is part of the Transneft system and is a major hub for transporting, storing and blending oil. Its territory covers more than 216 hectares, while its tank farm is the largest in Europe.

The facility has 71 tanks with a combined capacity of more than 1.6 million cubic meters of oil. The complex also includes the Samara-1 and Samara-2 oil pumping stations and a separate oil blending station.

Four main oil pipelines converge at the hub: Almetyevsk-Kuibyshev, Kaltasy-Kuibyshev, Nizhnevartovsk-Kurgan-Kuibyshev and Guryev-Kuibyshev.

They carry oil from Western Siberia, Tatarstan, the Orenburg region and Kazakhstan.

Strike on October 2

Following the strike on October 2, vertical steel storage tanks (VSTs) with a capacity of 20,000 cubic meters were damaged at the Samara-1 oil pumping station.

One was destroyed, two more sustained significant damage, while two others sustained surface damage or showed signs of burning within the containment berm.

The Samara-2 oil pumping station area contains 50,000-cubic-meter tanks. One sustained significant damage, while two others sustained surface damage.

At the oil blending facility, 20,000-cubic-meter tanks were damaged: one sustained significant damage, the roofs of two were destroyed, and two others sustained surface damage. A process pipeline was also damaged.

Overall, four to five RVS-20000 tanks and one RVS-50000 tank sustained significant damage.

It was previously reported that on October 6, a large fire broke out on an oil tanker in the Black Sea near Sochi following a suspected drone attack.