Drone Strike Damaged Primary and Secondary Processing Units at Kstovo Oil Refinery — Satellite Imagery

Ukrainian drone strikes on August 26 damaged the primary and secondary oil processing units at the Russian LUKOIL-Nizhegorodniinefteproekt oil refinery.

The Dnipro OSINT project published satellite imagery showing the aftermath of the attack.

It ranks fourth among Russia’s oil refineries by capacity and second in gasoline production. It is located in the city of Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region.

The images show at least four areas of intense burning caused by UAV strikes.

The project’s analysts determined that the technological overpasses and columns of the AVT-4, AVT-5, and AVT-1 primary crude oil distillation units, as well as the secondary processing units for vacuum gas oil hydrotreatment, were heavily damaged.

Following the Ukrainian drone strike, the facility suspended operations to repair the damaged units.

Footage filmed by local residents captured several areas of burning on the enterprise’s premises.

The Kstovo oil refinery has a maximum design capacity of approximately 17 million tonnes of crude oil per year.

Before the Ukrainian strikes, the refinery could produce around 5 million tonnes of gasoline, more than 5 million tonnes of diesel fuel, 2 million tonnes of fuel oil, and approximately 500,000 tonnes of bitumen. Overall, the facility produced more than 50 types of petroleum products.

Following previous Ukrainian drone strikes, LUKOIL-Nizhegorodniinefteproekt had already suspended operations due to damage to its processing equipment. One of the attacks took place on July 2.