One machine handles 52% of a Russian oil plant—Ukrainian drones just hit it

The Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck ELOU-AVT-7, the plant's largest crude unit, satellite images published by OSINT (open-source intelligence) project Dnipro Osint show. It processes 9.2 million tons of oil a year. Dnipro Osint puts that at about 52% of TANECO's total primary refining capacity. Losing it could strip the plant of the ability to process over half its crude. A Kaspersky industrial-monitoring case study, which used ELOU-AVT-7 as its pilot site, calls it the plant's most complex and important section.

Ukraine's deep-strike campaign has moved from setting refinery fires that Russia quickly patches to hitting the distillation units crude cannot flow without—the machine that stops a plant, not the tanks that only burn. Moscow is already importing gasoline by sea to cover shortfalls, turning the fuel that runs its war into a resource it has to ration.

A plant hit before, now hit at its center

The strike came overnight on 13 September, part of Ukraine's intensifying campaign against Russian fuel production. Drones already hit the Nizhnekamsk plant on 20 August, one of several raids on the Tatarstan cluster through the summer. Earlier hits sparked fires the plant could patch. This one struck the unit that carries most of its throughput.

TANECO, owned by Tatneft, is one of Russia's largest and most modern refineries, with its first units entering service in 2010 and 2011. It can process more than 16 million tons of crude a year. It makes gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, base oils, and marine fuel.

Ukraine has struck refineries far from the border for months, forcing plants offline and squeezing Russia's fuel output. Nizhnekamsk hosts two big plants, TANECO and the neighboring TAIF-NK, both hit repeatedly this year. TAIF-NK, the city's second refinery, processes up to 8.5 million tons a year.