Exclusive-Russia’s No.4 oil refinery restarts key unit damaged by drone, sources say

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian oil producer Lukoil has restarted a key piece of equipment for oil processing at its NORSI refinery, Russia’s fourth-largest, following a drone attack in March, two industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

The sources said the CDU-6 crude distillation unit, halted on March 12, resumed processing on June 22.

Lukoil did not respond to a request for comment.

The move is likely to ease worries over possible gasoline shortages at the time when the government is debating whether to continue with gasoline exports in July. A waiver for a ban on exports is due to expire at the end of this month.

A government source told Reuters on Wednesday there had been no decision yet on gasoline exports.

Ukraine has been targeting Russian energy infrastructure to try to disrupt Russia’s economy and its ability to fund its military effort.

Ukrainian officials say attacks have been carried out in retaliation for Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system. Moscow calls the attacks by Ukraine an act of terrorism.

The NORSI refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) east of Moscow, can process around 17 million metric tons of oil per year, or 340,000 barrels per day. It typically produces 11% of Russia’s gasoline.

One of the sources said the unit was running at around 60% of capacity, processing about 15,800 tons per day.

Before the attack, CDU-6 was able to process around 25,710 tons of oil per day, or around 9 million tons a year, exceeding the combined capacity of three other of the plant’s primary units, CDU-1, CDU-2 and CDU-5.

NORSI processed 22,000 tons of oil per day on average when CDU-6 was offline. In February it processed around 42,250 tons per day on average.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Potter)