The Orenburg gas processing plant, known as the world’s largest facility of its kind, has halted its gas intake from Kazakhstan due to a Ukrainian drone attack, as reported by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy on Sunday. Orenburg’s regional governor, Yevgeny Solntsev, mentioned earlier that the plant suffered partial damage, leading to a workshop fire caused by the drone strike, which was extinguished later, according to Russian media outlet Kommersant.
Ukraine has escalated its attacks on Russian refineries and energy facilities since August to disrupt gasoline supplies and cut off funding to Moscow. Confirming the strikes on a gas processing plant in the Orenburg region and an oil refinery in the Samara region in southwestern Russia, the Ukrainian military reported explosions and fires at the Orenburg site. This incident marks the first known strike on the plant, a part of the Orenburg gas chemical complex.
Operated by Gazprom, the facility has an annual processing capacity of 45 billion cubic meters, handling gas condensate from the Orenburg oil and gas field and Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field. The Kazakh Energy Ministry stated that Gazprom had informed them of the emergency but had not provided details on the extent of the damage or a recovery timeline. Fortunately, there were no casualties reported from the attack.
In a separate development, the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, mentioned on social media that air defenses were active against Ukrainian drones overnight, leading to temporary suspensions of the local airport and mobile internet services. The Russian Defence Ministry reported that its air defense forces had intercepted 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, with 12 over the Samara region, 11 over the Saratov region, and one over the Orenburg region.