On the night of September 26, Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. The Afipsky oil refinery was targeted, the Kuban operational headquarters reported.
“Drone debris fell on one of the units. No one was injured. A fire broke out over an area of 30 square meters, which has already been extinguished,” the headquarters noted.
The Afipsky refinery is one of the largest in southern Russia. Its production capacity is 9.1 million tons of oil per year. The plant has two primary oil-processing units. In spring of this year, a reconstruction of the refinery costing 217 billion rubles was completed. By the end of the year, the deep oil-processing complex was also planned to be modernized to produce 2.5 million tons per year of Euro-5 standard fuel. Previously, the refinery was struck by Ukrainian drones on August 7 and 28. These attacks forced the refinery to halt oil processing on one of its units. In addition to Afipsky, Ukrainian drones also struck the associated Krasnodar refinery on August 30.
Ukraine has been targeting Russian oil refineries since early August, partially or completely disabling at least five major facilities. According to Reuters calculations, Russian refining capacity has fallen by 17%, about 1.1 million barrels per day. Sources cited by Kommersant report that gasoline production has dropped by roughly 10%. Against this backdrop, over 300 gas stations have closed nationwide, and in many regions, limits on gasoline sales per person (10–20 liters) have been introduced. The crisis is compounded by a record rise in market gasoline prices, which have jumped 40–50% since the start of the year.
