(Bloomberg) -- A Ukrainian Security Service official said the country’s drones attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga on Saturday. There is no sign from ship-tracking that the facility’s crude oil flows have been affected.
Long-range drones operated by the Security Service covered more than 900 kilometers, and delivered a strike at the port’s gas condensate tanks, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity. One gas tank was damaged and three more were affected by blast debris, the person said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Dec. 4 it destroyed several drones over Leningrad region, where the port is located, but didn’t report any damage.
The port helps Russia to avoid sanctions, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Propaganda, said in a post on Telegram on Jan. 4. He mentioned a drone attack on Ust-Luga but didn’t say where they’d come from.
Ust-Luga previously came under drone attack almost exactly a year ago in an incident that saw crude loading and condensate operations disrupted. Ust-Luga, close to the border with Estonia, is second only to Primorsk as a Russian Baltic Sea oil export facility.
Crude oil shipments from Ust-Luga don’t appear to have been affected by the attack, vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. One oil tanker, the Sand, left the crude berths on Saturday afternoon, with its draft indicating that it had taken on a cargo. Another, the Xiwang, moored to load a cargo on Sunday morning.
Ust-Luga’s condensate terminal and storage tanks are just to the north of the two crude oil loading berths.
Tracking data show that a tanker, the Sea Beauty, was moored at the condensate terminal as of Monday midday London time. Its automated position signal indicates that it arrived on Friday and has remained at the berth ever since.
--With assistance from Olesia Safronova, Julian Lee and Daryna Krasnolutska.
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