Drones Attack Oil Terminal and Naval Base in Novorossiysk

Ukrainian drones attacked an oil terminal and a naval base in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, overnight on August 12.

Videos and photos showing explosions and fires were published by monitoring channels.

Fires were recorded, in particular, in the area of the Sheskharis terminal, where oil is loaded onto tankers, according to an OSINT analysis by Militarnyi based on data from NASA’s FIRMS satellite service.

A thermal signature was also detected in the area of the naval base and the storage tanks for petroleum products.

Civilian buildings in Novorossiysk were also damaged during the operation of Russian air defenses.

In the morning, Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the region had spent the night repelling a massive drone attack involving ‘several hundred’ drones. However, this claim by an official of the aggressor state’s region could not be independently verified.

The Sheskharis terminal is a major oil-handling complex in the port of Novorossiysk and the endpoint of Transneft’s main oil pipelines. Russia uses the terminal to export crude oil and petroleum products through the Black Sea, making it a strategically important facility for the invaders.

The facility consists of two industrial sites – Sheskharis and Grushevaya – located approximately 12 km apart and connected by a service tunnel through the Markotkh Range.

The terminal’s designed capacity is 75 million tonnes per year, while its tank farm has a total storage capacity of 1.28 million cubic meters. The maximum shipment size is up to 250,000 tonnes, with a loading rate of 15,000 cubic meters per hour.

The port of Novorossiysk also has military significance. Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels are based in the naval harbor area after fleeing Crimea following a series of Ukrainian attacks.

On the morning of August 11, Ukrainian drones struck the Orsknefteorgsintez oil refinery in Orsk, the Orenburg region, Russia.

The Ukrainian drone strike also caused a large-scale fire at a logistics complex operated by the Russian marketplace Wildberries near Voronezh.