Fire hits Rosneft's 240kbpd Tuapse refinery on Black Sea

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – A fire has hit Russia's biggest Black Sea oil refinery, knocking out production at the 240,000 bpd Tuapse site, the second major incident at a Russian refinery in less than a week.

Reports Thursday said a fire broke out at the 12 million mt Rosneft-owned refinery, which typically produces naphtha, gasoil and fuel oil for seaborne export.

"The vacuum distillation unit was on fire. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or injuries," Sergei Boiko, head of the Tuapse district, said.

According to local media reports, the fire had been extinguished by 0900 local time.

A cause of the fire is not yet known, although social media footage showed the facility on fire and commentators speculated a drone attack was behind the explosion.

Pattern

If linked to Ukrainian special operations attacks, it would mark the third attack by Kyiv on Russian energy facilities in the space of a week.

It comes as Ukraine looks for low-cost ways of blunting Moscow's military capacity, with conventional procurement and funding from its Western allies mired in political squabbling following a largely unsuccessful counteroffensive to push Russian forces off its territory.

A Sunday drone strike on a Novatek facility on the Baltic Sea near St Petersburg knocked out production and halted loadings. While docking has resumed at the Ust-Luga site, business daily Kommersant on Thursday quoted analysts estimating the refinery could be offline for up to two months as repairs are carried out.

A separate attempt on a nearby facility in the Leningrad region last Thursday was unsuccessful.