Drone Attack Sets Fire to Samara Oil Pumping Station in Russia as Kazakhstan Halts Pipeline Flows
Ukrainian media and open-source monitoring channels reported that the Samara Linear Production and Dispatch Station (LPDS) in Russia's Samara region was hit by drones and caught fire in the early hours of November 2. Bloomberg, citing NASA fire-monitoring satellite data, reported a fresh heat anomaly at the station on November 2. Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed a Ukrainian drone attack on the region that day but did not name the targets; Ukraine had not officially claimed the strike as of midday on November 2.
The station, near Prosvet, is operated by Russia's state pipeline company Transneft and is one of Europe's largest tank farms, with 71 storage tanks holding more than 1.6 million cubic metres of oil. It receives and blends crude from Western Siberia, Tatarstan, the Orenburg region and Kazakhstan. Ukraine's General Staff says the Urals crude blended there accounts for as much as half of Russia's oil exports. Ukrainian monitoring channels said six tanks were burning; the extent of the damage has not been confirmed by Russia.
It was the fifth attack on the station since October 2, following strikes on October 2, 7, 10 and 11. Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry said it had halted crude flows to Russia through the Atyrau-Samara pipeline after the attack on facilities in the Samara region.
The strike was part of a renewed Ukrainian campaign against Russian energy infrastructure: after a pause of about two weeks from mid-October, Ukrainian drones hit the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in the Samara region on Friday and refineries in Bashkortostan and Nizhny Novgorod over the weekend.
Source: Bloomberg
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：俄罗斯萨马拉市伏尔加河畔（资料图）。照片 CC BY-SA 4.0，作者 Apetrov09703，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Volga riverfront in Samara, Russia (file photo). CC BY-SA 4.0, by Apetrov09703, via Wikimedia Commons.
