Russia Says Drone Attack Caused Fire at Tuapse Oil Refinery

(Bloomberg) — Ukrainian drone attacks triggered a massive fuel tank fire at Rosneft PJSC’s Tuapse oil refinery, one of the biggest in Russia.

The area of ​​the fire is more than 1,000 square meters, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said in the Telegram post. The number of people fighting the blaze has been boosted to 172 from 121 in the morning, Sergey Boyko, head of the Tuapse municipal district, said on Telegram. 

There are no casualties or oil-product spills, according to Boyko. Rosneft didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s request for a comment.  

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, seeking to hit a major source of revenue for Moscow and curtail fuel supplies to its military forces occupying parts of Ukraine.

The Tuapse refinery, with a nameplate capacity of about 240,000 barrels a day, focuses on exports of diesel and fuel oil across the Black Sea and has been a target of repeated drone attacks due to its relative proximity to the border with Ukraine. The last time it was attacked was in February. 

The latest fire started around 3 a.m. local time on Friday, Boyko said, adding that emergency services have the situation under control. 

Ukraine has also focused its attacks on crude-pipeline infrastructure. Targets included the Andreapol pumping station on the Baltic System Pipeline-2 route, and a CPC pumping station delivering mainly Kazakh crude to the Black Sea. 

Separately, Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow for the second time in a week, damaging several residential buildings. The emergency services are working at the sites, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.

(Updates with new information in the second and third paragraphs.)

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