Ukrainian drone attacks have knocked out about 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity, disrupting shipments from major Baltic and Black Sea ports, Reuters reported Wednesday.
The shutdown, which Reuters called the "most severe oil supply disruption" in modern Russian history, comes as global energy markets tightened due to the Iran war.
Loadings at Primorsk and Ust-Luga, Russia’s two largest Baltic ports, were again suspended after a second drone attack this week triggered fires and damage to infrastructure.
The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, which has a capacity of about 700,000 barrels per day, is lagging behind its loading schedule after drone attacks earlier this month, Reuters said.
And Russia’s pipeline exports to Hungary and Slovakia have been effectively halted since January due to damage to the Druzhba oil pipeline via Ukraine.
The disruptions mean that roughly 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity, about 2 million barrels per day, is currently offline as of Wednesday, Reuters said.
The outages have also led to a buildup of tankers waiting offshore.
At least 50 vessels are currently in the Gulf of Finland listing Primorsk or Ust-Luga as their destination, according to ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic.
Smoke from the fire at Ust-Luga, which has 33 fuel storage tanks with a total capacity exceeding 500 rail tank cars, has been visible from Finland, stretching for dozens of kilometers along the coastline of the gulf, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported.
Oil and gas exports are a key source of revenue for the Russian budget.
Read this story in Russian at The Moscow Times' Russian service.
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