The fire at the Ust-Luga terminal started just before 2:45 am on January 21, 2024. By morning it was out, and Leningrad Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko was telling the public that nobody had been hurt. Four days later, a second Russian energy site, the Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea, went up in flames.
Ust-Luga, Baltic coast
The terminal belongs to Novatek, Russia’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas. It sits about 110 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, near the Estonian border, and ships oil and gas products to buyers abroad, Europe among them. The Ust-Luga complex also turns gas condensate into naphtha, jet fuel and ship fuel components, according to Novatek’s website.
Russian media cited local officials as saying two explosions caused the blaze, which was confined to a fuel depot of 100 cubic meters. Novatek put it down to an “external factor” and suspended some operations. Residents and local outlets had reported drones in the area, and the Defense Ministry had said earlier that morning that two drones were heading toward St. Petersburg.
Neither the company nor the authorities said more about the cause. The site lies 1,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Kyiv, meanwhile, had claimed responsibility that week for two attacks on oil depots inside Russia, one in the Leningrad region. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry does not usually comment on such strikes.
Tuapse, Black Sea coast
Drones hit the Tuapse refinery on the night of 24-25 January. Rosneft operates the plant, one of Russia’s ten largest. A vacuum unit burned down. Ukraine’s Security Service said it carried out the attack and promised more against facilities that feed Russia’s war effort. Russian authorities closed Sochi airport and sounded air-raid warnings in nearby settlements. Rosneft declined to comment.
Reuters sources said repairs could run into late February or early March. Tuapse, founded in 1929, can process 12 million tonnes of oil a year, or 240,000 barrels per day, and sends fuel to Turkey, China, Malaysia and Singapore through a nearby port.
The damage showed up in the numbers. Kommersant reported that Rosneft cut its refining rate to roughly 170,000 tonnes of oil per day in January 2024. Russian refining as a whole fell 4% against the previous January, and the Tuapse shutdown accounted for a large part of that drop.
It was the fourth major strike on Russian energy infrastructure in a single week, Ukrainska Pravda noted.
Sources
- Russian Energy Company Suspends Some Operations At Baltic Sea Terminal After Fire
- Fire at Russia Gas Terminal Caused by 'External Factor': Novatek
- Russian oil refinery in Tuapse stops operation because of Ukrainian drone attack
- Drone strike on Tuapse refinery cuts Rosneft's refining capacity by 10%
