After Ukrainian Attacks, Fires Halt Oil Loading at Ust-Luga for Days
The repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian oil port of Ust-Luga have reduced its export activity to near-zero, according to data from maritime intelligence firm Windward.
In ordinary times, Ust-Luga exports about 700,000 barrels of oil per day, and the nearby Primorsk terminal loads about one million barrels per day. Most of the volume goes to Asian customers due to EU and US sanctions. According to Windward, activity at Ust-Luga has collapsed since the series of drone strikes, and it has not exported anything in five days.
New imagery collected on March 27 shows a large fire at the Ust-Luga oil terminal in northern Russia. Multiple oil storage tanks are on fire and dark smoke is billowing from the area.
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Satellite images obtained by Planet Labs and shared by Radio Liberty this week illustrate the reason: as of March 30, the Ust-Luga tank farms were still actively on fire. Photos of Primorsk showed one tank still smoldering.
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TankerTrackers.com confirmed Tuesday that Ust-Luga is still unable to load because "the fires are too close to the loading berths." At Primorsk, terminal operators are still actively loading tankers at the pier despite damage to the onshore storage tanks, the consultancy said.
The attacks crimp Russian oil exports at a time when global energy supplies are already tight due to the conflict in the Arabian Gulf, and the shutdowns at Ust-Luga and Primorsk threaten to raise crude prices even further. In a voice message sent to reporters by phone app on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that some of Kyiv's allies had requested a halt in attacks on Russian energy infrastructure due to the spiking cost of oil. "We have received messages from some of our partners asking about how our responses against Russia's oil sector . . . can be reduced. If Russia is ready not to strike Ukraine's energy, then we'll respond by not attacking theirs," Zelensky told BBC.
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