Oil pipeline in Primorsk region damaged by drones overnight. Ports Ust-Luga and Primorsk not accepting oil for the second week
On the night of April 5, the Leningrad region experienced another drone attack, leading to new damage to oil infrastructure. According to the statement by regional governor Alexander Drozdenko, air defense forces shot down 19 drones. UAV debris damaged a section of the oil pipeline in the Primorsk port area. This incident exacerbated the already critical situation in Russia's largest export hubs on the Baltic Sea.
Strikes on oil infrastructure over the last two weeks of March have virtually paralyzed the operations of Primorsk and Ust-Luga — they are Russia's largest oil ports in the country's northwest.
According to Reuters, since March 22, Primorsk has practically stopped accepting diesel fuel for shipment, and Ust-Luga has been hit at least five times in ten days. As a result, the number of tankers departing from these ports has decreased from 40—50 vessels per week to isolated instances.
Reuters previously reported that Ukrainian strikes disabled about 20% of Russian oil export capacity — approximately 1 million barrels per day.
Oil refineries are forced to switch to expensive rail transportation, but alternative ports like Vysotsk or Taman do not have the necessary throughput capacity. Against this backdrop, Transneft's storage facilities are overflowing with crude oil. If exports do not resume in the near future, extraction companies will be forced to mothball wells and reduce oil production.
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