A fire continued for a second day at one of Russia’s largest oil transportation hubs in the Samara region following a Ukrainian drone strike on Monday (November 2), with footage showing a huge plume of smoke rising above the facility’s storage tanks.
The attack targeted the Samara Linear Production and Distribution Station (LPDS), a major facility operated by Russian state-owned Transneft, located near the settlement of Prosvet, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the regional capital.
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The station is one of the largest oil storage facilities in Europe, with 71 tanks holding more than 1.6 million cubic meters (56.5 million cubic feet) of crude oil. Spanning more than 216 hectares (534 acres), it is a key hub in Russia’s oil transportation network, where four major pipelines converge.
Footage published by Russian investigative media outlet Astra and Ukrainian surveillance channels showed thick black smoke rising from the direction of the facility. Astra cited eyewitness accounts and images from local residents.
Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev acknowledged a Ukrainian drone attack in the region, but did not identify the facility as a target or report damage. He said air defense systems and mobile fire brigades were operational.
Why the Samara oil hub is important
The Samara LPDS is more than a storage depot. It is a major transportation and distribution hub connecting the oil-producing regions of Western Siberia, Tatarstan, the Orenburg region and Kazakhstan to the wider Russian pipeline network.
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Four large pipelines converge at the facility: Almetyevsk-Kuibyshev, Kaltasy-Kuibyshev, Nizhnevartovsk-Kurgan-Kuibyshev and Guryev-Kuibyshev.
The station receives, stores and redistributes crude oil, routing supplies to Russian refineries and export infrastructure, including the Druzhba pipeline.
It also plays a role in the preparation of Russia’s Ural export blend, the main grade of crude oil exported by the country. Oil from different producing regions is blended to achieve required specifications before being transported to export markets.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the Urals account for up to half of Russia’s oil exports, making the facilities involved in its production and transportation strategically important to Moscow’s energy revenues.
The importance of this hub extends beyond Russia. It also manages Kazakh crude transported via the Atyrau-Samara pipeline, one of Kazakhstan’s oil export routes through Russian territory.
Kazakhstan temporarily suspended the transportation of oil through the pipeline following Monday’s attack. Its energy ministry said pumping resumed Tuesday after a technical inspection, and the route was returning to normal operations.
Repeated attacks on the establishment
Monday’s strike was not the first time the LPDS in Samara had been targeted. The Kyiv Post previously reported several attacks on the facility in October, including strikes on October 2, 7, 10 and 11.
The attack on October 7 caused particularly significant damage. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed that an earlier strike on October 2 damaged 11 storage tanks with a capacity of 20,000 cubic meters each and three tanks with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters (1.7 million cubic feet) each.
After the attack of October 7, the destruction of four additional storage tanks of 50,000 cubic meters has been confirmed, with satellite images showing the extent of the damage.
The latest attack also came amid a new wave of Ukrainian strikes against Russia’s refining industry.
On October 30, drones struck the Rosneft refinery in Novokuibyshevsk, Samara Oblast. The next day, Bashneft’s Novoil refinery in Ufa, in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan, was hit.
On Sunday, the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez (NORSI) refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region was targeted, while a fire broke out at the Novo-Yaroslavl (Slavneft-YANOS) refinery following a reported drone attack.
Ukraine has temporarily suspended attacks on Russian refineries following US President Donald Trump’s request to President Volodymyr Zelensky not to target Russian fuel production.
However, attacks on other elements of Russia’s oil infrastructure, including transportation and storage facilities, continued.
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