Russia’s biggest oil refinery has stopped operating after a Ukrainian drone strike, two industry sources said on Tuesday. The attack hit the plant in the Omsk region of western Siberia on Monday. It ranks among the longest-range Ukrainian strikes of a war that is well into its fifth year.
Anatoly Seryshev, President Vladimir Putin’s representative in Siberia, confirmed damage but not its effect on output. “Facilities at the Omsk oil refinery were damaged as a result of [Monday’s] attack. No plant personnel were injured,” he said in a statement. Damage assessment was underway, he said, and “competent services have organized restoration work.” Gazprom Neft, the owner, had not replied to a request for comment.
What was hit
Ukraine’s General Staff gave its own account on Facebook. A direct hit started a fire, it said, and preliminary information pointed to the ELOU-AVT-11 primary processing unit, designed for 8.4 million tons of crude a year. The plant sits nearly 2,500 km from the border. The General Staff said Omsk was the last of Russia’s 11 largest gasoline-producing refineries to be struck.
The industry sources described it differently. They said a crude distillation unit, CDU-10, caught fire and was damaged. It handles around 38% of the plant’s production capability, at 24,580 metric tons a day. A second unit, CDU-11, was taken offline too. It accounts for 37% of capacity and can process 24,000 tons of oil per day. It was not hit directly, they said, but network links it needs were damaged. CDU-11 began operating in 2023, and the sources expect it could resume work in the near future.
Two mothballed units, CDU-7 and CDU-8, each have a production capacity of 10,000 tons. In theory the plant could restart them.
Fuel supply
The refinery stopped selling gasoline and diesel on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday, exchange data showed. It is Russia’s top gasoline producer, and the sources said the halt is likely to worsen fuel shortages around the country.
The sources said the plant processed 22 million tons of oil, or around 440,000 barrels per day, in 2024. That yielded 5 million tons of gasoline and 8 million tons of diesel. Ukraine’s General Staff puts annual capacity at more than 21 million tons and says the refinery’s processing depth is about 99%, among the highest in Russia.
The plant makes high-octane gasoline grades AI-92, AI-95 and G-Drive 100, Euro 5 diesel, aviation kerosene, benzene, paraxylene, lubricants and motor and industrial oils. The General Staff said it plays a key role in supplying fuel to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. On July 6, Andrii Kovalenko, who heads Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, also reported that the refinery had been struck.
Sources
- Russia’s Largest Oil Refinery Halts Production After Drone Attack, Sources Say – The Moscow Times
- Ukraine’s General Staff confirms strike on Omsk Oil Refinery nearly 2,500 km from border
