Governor says Ukrainian drone caused fire at major Russian gas processing plant

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones struck the Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest of its kind in the world, and damaged parts of the facility, but no employees were injured in the attack, the region’s governor said on Sunday.
Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said on his official Telegram channel that the drone strike caused a fire in one of the factory’s workshops and that emergency services were working to put out the fire.
The plant is 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 meters of natural gas. This is the first time there have been reports of an attack on the plant.
The plant processes condensate from the Orenburg condensate field and the Karachaganak field in Kazakhstan.
In addition, Vyacheslav Fedorishev, the governor of Russia’s Samara region, said on social media that air defense forces had taken action against Ukrainian drones overnight, and local airports and mobile Internet services had been temporarily suspended.
Ukraine had previously attempted to attack an oil refinery in the Samara region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Russian air defense forces 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 since August has stepped up attacks on Russian refineries and other energy facilities in an attempt to disrupt gasoline supplies and deprive Moscow of funds.
(Reporting by Reuters Editing by Andrew Osborne)