A fire broke out at an oil depot in the village of Kavkazskaya near Kropotkin, Krasnodar region, following a UAV attack. The pipeline between storage tanks was damaged, and operations at the facility have been halted.
According to the Krasnodar region’s emergency headquarters, the fire started due to drone debris impact.
"The fire covers an area of 20 square meters. The pipeline between the tanks is damaged. The automatic fire suppression and cooling system was activated. The fire has been assigned a level 4 complexity rating," Russian authorities reported.
According to preliminary reports, there were no casualties, but 30 on-duty employees were evacuated, and operations at the facility have been suspended, the Krasnodar region’s emergency headquarters stated.
Currently, 105 personnel and 45 units of equipment are involved in firefighting efforts.
The "Kavkazskaya" oil transshipment facility is a key hub for transporting Russian crude for export. It includes a railway oil terminal and a connecting pipeline to the "Kropotkinskaya" oil pumping station, part of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) system. Annually, up to 6 million tons of oil pass through "Kavkazskaya." This infrastructure enables fuel shipments via the CPC pipeline to a terminal near Novorossiysk, where it is exported by sea. Major Russian oil companies, including Surgutneftegaz, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, and Lukoil, use the facility to supply foreign markets.
Previously, Ukraine targeted CPC infrastructure directly. On February 17, a Ukrainian drone attack hit the "Kropotkinskaya" oil pumping station in the Krasnodar region. This station plays a crucial role in transporting oil via the "Tengiz–Novorossiysk" pipeline, which carries over two-thirds of Kazakhstan’s total oil exports, along with Russian crude, including from Caspian fields. As a result of the attack, the "Kaspiyskaya" station was temporarily shut down, causing a decline in CPC oil throughput.
