Russia’s Perm oil refinery halts operations after Ukraine's drone strike

Russia’s Perm oil refinery has fully suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone strike on May 7 triggered a fire and damaged key equipment, Reuters reports, citing two industry sources.

Perm region governor Dmitry Makhonin said on May 8 that Ukrainian drones hit industrial sites in the area located about 1,460 kilometres (908 miles) east of Moscow, though he did not specify the exact facility involved.

Ukraine has increasingly focused on Russian energy infrastructure as part of efforts to cut off revenue streams and weaken Moscow’s military capacity.

According to the sources, three main crude distillation units were immediately shut down following the impact. Several secondary processing units were also taken offline.

One of the primary units, CDU-4, had already been out of service since April 30 due to a separate drone strike.

Repair operations are expected to last several weeks. Lukoil, which owns the refinery, did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2024, the Perm refinery processed about 12.6 million tons of crude oil, or roughly 250,000 barrels per day. Its output included around 2 million tons of gasoline, 5.3 million tons of diesel, 700,000 tons of petroleum coke, and 200,000 tons of fuel oil.

By Jeyhun Aghazada