NORSI, Lukoil's plant ranked as Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery, has taken its main crude unit offline after a Wednesday Ukrainian drone strike, two industry sources told Reuters. The shutdown removes more than half of the plant's processing capacity. The Lukoil-owned facility is also Russia's second-largest gasoline producer.
What the shutdown takes offline
The Lukoil-Nizhegorodneftorgsintez plant — known as NORSI — runs the AVT-6 (or CDU-6) primary crude unit as its main processing stage. The unit normally handles 25,700 tonnes of oil per day, or about 190,000 barrels.
That share covers 53% of the facility's total throughput. The whole plant is rated at 16 million metric tons per year, or roughly 320,000 barrels of crude oil per day. With CDU-6 down, more than half of that flow is diverted to the plant.
Russia's central refining belt under pressure
Most large refineries across Russia's central belt are now operating below capacity or fully idled following the latest wave of Ukrainian drone attacks, Reuters reported earlier. NORSI's reduced output deepens the strain on the country's domestic fuel market and on its broader energy economy. No response from Lukoil to Reuters' inquiry was on record as of publication.
Second drone hit on Kstovo in a week
The plant sits near Kstovo in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, about 450 km east of Moscow. Ukraine's General Staff confirmed the 20 May strike, which set fires at two industrial sites on the refinery's premises. Nizhny Novgorod governor Gleb Nikitin confirmed the blaze. The 20 May attack followed an earlier hit on 18 May. An April strike also damaged the thermal plant supplying the refinery's industrial zone.
