Night Drone Attack: Satellites Spot Fires at Gas Plant and Oil Pumping Station in Russia’s Volgograd Region

Satellites detected fires at a gas processing plant in the city of Kotovo and at the Efimovka oil pumping station in the Volgograd region of Russia following a night drone attack.

Andrei Bocharov, the governor of the region, reported the fires at fuel and energy sector facilities on the night of October 9, as reported by Astra.

However, the Russian official did not specify which particular enterprises were involved.

At the same time, local residents reported on social media and in groups about a fire at the LUKOIL-Korobkovsky Gas Processing Plant.

This is the largest natural gas processing facility in the Southern Federal District of Russia. Its production capacity is 450 million cubic meters of gas feedstock per year.

A significant portion of the plant’s production, including liquefied gases and stable gasoline, is intended for export.

In addition, satellites from NASA’s FIRMS fire monitoring system detected a fire at the Efimovka Linear Production Dispatch Station.

The station is a key hub of the Kuybyshev-Tikhoretsk oil pipeline, which is involved in the export of Russian oil through the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.

This oil pumping station is owned by the Russian Transneft company.

In the morning, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation claimed that, on the night of October 9, Russian air defense allegedly shot down 19 Ukrainian drones, nine of which were over the territory of the Volgograd region.

As a result of the Ukrainian drone attack on October 6, the cooling tower of an oil refinery in the city of Tyumen was damaged. Tyumen is located approximately 2,000 km from the Ukrainian state border.

This is currently the record distance for a strike by attack UAVs on a target within Russian territory.