Shipments of crude oil are once again moving from the Atyrau region toward international markets after a brief suspension of exports on Monday. The Kazakhstan Energy Ministry confirmed that transit has returned to normal on the pipeline leading to Russia’s Samara pumping complex, where overnight drone strikes had previously caused fuel tanks to catch fire and halted the flow of oil.
The disruption follows a weekend escalation in Ukrainian drone raids on Russian energy infrastructure, including three refining units with a combined processing capacity of more than 500,000 BPD. These attacks, which targeted sites in Ufa and the Volga region, ended a two-week lull in Kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian fuel supplies just as the country’s domestic gasoline shortages had begun to ease.