Ukrainian drones cause fire at major Russian gas processing plant, governor says

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Ukrainian drones attacked the Orenburg gas processing plant, the world’s largest facility of its kind, and damaged part of it but no employees were hurt in the attack, the region’s governor said on Sunday.

The governor, Yevgeny Solntsev, said on his official Telegram channel that the drone strike had caused a fire to break out at a workshop at the plant which emergency services were working to put out.

It is the first time that the plant, part of the Orenburg gas chemical complex, which includes Gazprom’s production and processing facilities in the Orenburg region with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic metres of gas, has been reported to have been hit.

The plant processes gas condensate from the Orenburg oil and gas condensate field, as well as from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field.

Separately, the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said on social media that air defences had been in action overnight against Ukrainian drones and that the local airport and mobile internet services had been temporarily suspended.

Ukraine has previously tried to strike an oil refinery in the Samara region.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that its air defence forces had shot down 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Samara region, 11 over the Saratov region, and one over the Orenburg region.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine which has stepped up its attacks on Russian refineries and other energy facilities since August to try to disrupt petrol supplies and deprive Moscow of funding.

(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Andrew Osborn)