Ukraine’s second drone strike in two days knocks Moscow’s main oil refinery completely offline
Ukrainian drones damaged the Euro+ combined oil refining unit at the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya on June 18, Reuters sources said.
The Euro+ unit includes its own crude distillation section with a nominal capacity of around 140,000 barrels per day — 47% of the refinery’s total primary processing capacity — along with a catalytic reformer and a diesel hydrotreating unit
Auxiliary equipment and storage tanks for crude oil and petroleum products were also hit.
The June 18 strike damaged the refinery’s main crude processing unit, Sergei Vakulenko, an expert at the Carnegie Eurasian Center, told Agentstvo, the independent Russian investigative outlet. Vakulenko said the unit is one of two key elements that supply feedstock for commercial fuel production at other units. The refinery has two AVT units; the first, AVT-6, which accounts for 53% of the refinery’s capacity, was damaged in Ukraine’s previous strike on the plant on June 16.
The Moscow oil refinery suspended operations after the June 16 attack. Reuters sources said the refinery had planned to restart the Euro+ unit by midweek and was processing oil at roughly half capacity while repairs to the AVT-6 unit were underway.
The refinery is one of Moscow’s primary fuel suppliers. The two strikes are expected to keep the refinery offline for several days.
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