Russia’s Fourth-Largest Oil Refinery Halts Operations After Drone Strike

Russia’s LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery, located in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, has suspended operations following a Ukrainian drone strike.

Reuters, citing two industry sources, reported that the refinery is Russia’s fourth-largest by refining capacity and the country’s second-largest producer of gasoline.

According to the agency, the enterprise suspended operations on Wednesday, June 24, following a drone attack, which could worsen Russia’s nationwide fuel shortage.

Sources told the journalists that the AVT-5 crude oil primary processing unit at the refinery had been damaged.

The unit has a processing capacity of 12,000 metric tons per day, which accounts for approximately one-quarter of the refinery’s total production capacity.

Meanwhile, the oil refinery may be able to use its other processing units to resume operations in the near future.

On the morning of June 24, the governor of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said that debris from downed Ukrainian drones had damaged an industrial facility.

According to local residents, the drones were flying toward the LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery. At the same time, Astra reported that the likely target of the attack may have been the Elektrokabel NN plant.

The targeted oil refinery

The LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez is one of Russia’s largest gasoline-oriented oil refineries. It ranks fourth in the country by crude oil processing volume.

Its maximum designed processing capacity is approximately 17 million metric tons of crude oil per year. Before the attacks, it was capable of producing around 5 million metric tons of gasoline, more than 5 million metric tons of diesel fuel, 2 million metric tons of fuel oil, and about 500,000 metric tons of bitumen annually. Overall, the facility manufactures more than 50 different commercial petroleum products.

The facility has been targeted by Ukrainian drones multiple times during the full-scale war, including on May 20. During that attack, the AVT-6 crude oil processing unit was struck, triggering a fire.