Drones Strike Lukoil Oil Refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Region

Strike drones targeted the LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in the city of Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region.

NASA’s FIRMS fire monitoring system confirmed this.

A large fire was detected across a significant portion of the refinery at around 2 a.m., when local residents reported a drone attack on the facility.

Later, according to photos and videos, a fire broke out on the plant’s premises, accompanied by intense flames and a glow in the sky.

By early morning, local residents observed thick, dark smoke rising into the air. It is worth noting that LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez is one of the largest gasoline-focused oil refineries in Russia.

The enterprise produces more than 50 types of commercial petroleum products. Its main areas include motor fuels, bitumen and paraffin, catalytic cracking, feedstock and commercial production, and the maintenance of processing units.

A residual oil processing facility at this refinery was commissioned in 2022, with a processing capacity of 2.1 million tons of feedstock per year.

The PENEX isomerization unit has a design capacity of 800,000 tons of feedstock per year. It is important for producing high-octane gasoline components.

The facility is located about 800 km from Ukraine’s state border. Despite this distance, it has been repeatedly targeted by drone attacks, including in October of this year.

For example, on November 4, 2025, strike drones attacked the refinery’s territory. At that time, a fire broke out in the southeastern part of the industrial zone, where two facilities are located — SIBUR-Kstovo and Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez.

They are situated next to each other. The SIBUR-Kstovo petrochemical plant officially produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, as well as a number of hydrocarbon fractions.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported that it also produces components for explosives.

On the night of Tuesday, March 12, 2024, a fire broke out at the oil depot. It was reported that a strike drone hit a crude oil processing unit directly.

As a result of the strike, a large-scale fire erupted on the facility’s premises. The company Lukoil, which owns this Russian refinery, stated that operations at the processing unit had been suspended “due to the incident.”