Information about the bombing of one of the refineries still needs to be confirmed by official sources in Ukraine.
The occupiers may have destroyed or damaged two Ukrainian refineries, one of which, the Odessa Refinery, was shut down 12 years ago and the other, the Kremenchug Refinery, was one of two operating in Ukraine. Dmytro Lunin, the head of the Poltava Regional Department, announced the destruction of the latter after the shelling of Kremenchuk on April 1.
The message is dated the evening of April 2.
“The occupiers fired en masse at the Kremenchug refinery and surrounding fuel and lubricants depots. Unfortunately, the company's infrastructure was destroyed. The plant is not working,” he said.
According to Lunin , there is no ecological catastrophe, the SES is in control of the situation. The company processed about 3 million tons of oil a year.
In addition, during the shelling of Odessa on the morning of April 3, the Odessa refinery, which had been idle since 2010, was probably damaged or destroyed.
“The refinery and three storage facilities were destroyed Fuel and lubricants in the area of Odessa “, – the Russian news agency TASS reports.
Read also: The occupiers carried out a strike on Odessa
Odessa refinery was shut down in 2010, the company was in critical condition. Until 2013, the refinery belonged to the Russian oil company LUKOIL, which later sold the asset to Serhiy Kurchenko's VETEK group. VETEK later pledged the plant to VTB on a loan from Swisspro Capital in Cyprus. Kurchenko himself soon left Ukraine, and the plant was de facto nationalized.
In total, there were 7 oil refineries in Ukraine, including three directly or indirectly controlled by Russia . All but two refineries closed from 2009 to 2012, including due to bankruptcy .
< p style = "text-align: justify;"> At the same time, as you know, all these years the main imports of fuel to Ukraine were made from Russia and Belarus .
Read also: “Forget about 92nd gasoline forever” – Director of “Consulting Group A-95” on the situation in the fuel market
In 2022, imports from Russia are almost did not happen. However, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 7, Belarus began blocking the transportation of petroleum products loaded at Lithuanian Railways stations by rail. After that, Ukrainian gas stations were forced to switch to Belarusian fuel.
After the war, Ukraine completely rebuilt the logistics of fuel supply, refocusing on Europe .
Also, it later became clear that the oil depots bombed by the occupiers since the beginning of the war throughout Ukraine , there was almost no fuel . This was stated by the director of LLC “Consulting Group A-95” Sergei Kuyun in an interview with the BBC. He explained that the market was ready to bomb these facilities.
