AJ
In the early hours of the morning a fire broke out in the industrial zone near the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery and the SIBUR-Kstovo petrochemical plant after a night time attack in the Kstovo city of Nizhny Novgorod.
On the night of November 4 local residents reported hearing explosions as a bright glow appeared over the city, captured on multiple video sources, while footage from eyewitnesses also showed that a fire had broken out following the attack.
Multiple OSINT sources assessed the footage and concluded that the photo was taken in the village of Novolikeevo, while analysts believed the fire broke out in the south-eastern part of the industrial zone, where to oil enterprises were located in close proximity to each other.
According to its website, the SIBUR-Kstovo petrochemical plant produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, as well as a number of hydrocarbon fractions, but Ukrainian media speculated that the facility also produced components for explosives.
As media reported, LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez is one of the leading refineries in Russia, which is important for supplying the Moscow region, and currently processes a large amount of the country’s oil.
Gasoline from the Nizhny Novgorod refinery was delivered to Moscow via a pipeline that was installed for primary oil refining and processed 17 million tons per year, while the enterprise produced more than 50 types of other products, including automotive, aviation and diesel fuels as well as petroleum bitumen, paraffins and others.
According to Crimean Wind, the facility processes oil from Western Siberia and Tatarstan, and is delivered to the plant via two pipelines, the first being Almetyevsk-Nizhny Novgorod and the second being Surgut-Polotsk, while finished products are shipped by rail, road and river, as well as by the pipeline that transits 17 million tons per year.
