Russia’s Primorskyi oil terminal loses at least 40% of tank capacity after drone attacks, Reuters

At least eight tanks with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters each were damaged in a port on the Baltic Sea coast.

One of Russia’s largest oil export ports, Primorsk, lost at least half of its oil and petroleum product storage capacity as a result of attacks by Ukrainian drones in late March. This was reported by Reuters, citing satellite images from the American company Vantor.

According to an analysis of the images, at least eight tanks with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters each were damaged in the port. They account for about 40% of the total storage volume at the main Primorsk oil depot.

For a port of this size, the tank farm is a critically important part of logistics. Its condition directly affects the ability to accumulate, transship and export raw materials. Due to these losses, the port may be forced to reduce cargo turnover accordingly.

Primorsk is one of the key hubs for Russian oil exports in the Baltics. According to Transneft, its capacity reaches 1 million barrels per day, which is almost 1% of world oil supplies. Diesel fuel is also shipped through this port. According to Reuters, two of the eight seriously damaged tanks were used for diesel.

At the same time, another important Baltic port of the Russian Federation, Ust-Luga, was also under attack. During March, it was attacked several times, and export operations had to be suspended. Satellite images showed that at the Ust-Luga Oil terminal, eight tanks for petroleum products with a capacity of 30 thousand cubic meters each were damaged by fire – this is about a quarter of all stocks of this terminal. Damage was also recorded to part of the berthing infrastructure.

In general, against the background of attacks on Baltic ports, problems with the Druzhba oil pipeline and detentions of vessels related to Russia, about 40% of Russian export opportunities in the oil segment were under attack in March.

Also, the day before, an operation to tow a damaged Russian gas tanker in the Mediterranean Sea failed.