Flames engulfed an oil refinery in the remote Russian city of Angarsk, near the border with Mongolia. Ukrainian border American Igor Sushko tweeted footage of the fire, commenting, “Oil refinery on fire in #Angarsk, about 300 km north of the Mongolian border.”
In the clip, fierce flames are shown at the facility, which processes West Siberian crude oil delivered through the Transneft pipeline system.
Several others also shared the footage, including Top Disaster’s Twitter page, which commented: “The fire started in the morning on the territory of a petrochemical enterprise in #Angarsk. The fire was located on a area of 250 square meters, no one was injured.”
There is no indication as to when the fire started, although journalist Adam Porter Nasseur, also via Twitter, suggested it started yesterday.
Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, said the Ministry of Emergency Situations extinguished the flames. An investigation into the causes of the fire has been opened.
Opened in 1955, the refinery is located in Irkutsk Oblast in southeastern Siberia, according to offshoretechnology.com.
Irkutsk, which includes Lake Baikal, had a population of 2,428,750 at the 2010 census.
Integrated refinery in which refining and petrochemical units are interconnected, it belongs to Rosneft Oil.
Putin owns gas and oil essential to his war against Ukraine and is widely seen as using energy as a weapon.
Transneft is a state-controlled pipeline transportation company headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and the largest oil pipeline company in the world.
The company has more than 70,000 kilometers of main pipelines and transports about 80% of oil and 30 petroleum products produced in Russia.
There is no indication that it is currently offline following the fire.
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She said: “He has already proven that he can withstand tests and master many challenges.”
Before Russia launched its war in Ukraine nine months ago, Germany was heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies. Since then, Germany has rushed to find other sources, including increasing its imports of liquefied natural gas.
France, meanwhile, is struggling to meet its electricity needs due to repairs to several nuclear power plants in the country. There are fears that a sharp increase in electricity demand from France this winter, coupled with lower generation in Germany and limited transmission capacity in Europe, will strain the continent’s grid.
In response, France said it would supply up to 100 gigawatt hours of gas per day to Germany. Meanwhile, Germany will “maximize interconnection capacity” for electricity exports.