Depressurization and fire at a trunk gas pipeline in Kuzbass: gas supply to Azot plant restricted

In the Topkinsky Municipal District of the Kemerovo Region, a trunk gas pipeline suffered depressurization followed by a fire. The incident was reported by the region's governor, Ilya Seredyuk, on his Telegram channel, reports RBC-Ukraine. According to him, the flames have already been contained and extinguished, and the situation is under the control of the authorities.

Course of the incident and actions of the authorities

As Seredyuk clarified, no gas shutoffs for private consumers are planned, and heating systems in the region are operating normally. Thus, according to the governor's statement, there is no direct threat to domestic gas and heat supply to settlements. He added that the gas pressure in the system has stabilized and the enterprise is returning to its "operating parameters."

Impact on Azot production

Due to the depressurization, gas supply to the Kemerovo chemical plant "Azot" was restricted in accordance with industrial regulations. The governor emphasized that there is no security threat, and the plant is returning to normal operation after pressure stabilization. The restriction of raw materials supply to the enterprise became the main industrial consequence of the incident.

Strategic importance of the plant

"Azot" is one of Russia's largest chemical plants, located in Kemerovo. The enterprise is a leading producer of ammonium nitrate and nitric acid, which serve as basic raw materials for military-industrial complex factories in the production of a wide range of industrial and military explosives. The temporary gas supply restriction, therefore, affects not only civil but also defense production.

Context: a series of pipeline incidents

The incident in Kuzbass comes against the backdrop of a series of failures on trunk pipelines in Russia. In December 2025, the "Central Asia - Center" trunk gas pipeline failed in the Volgograd region due to "soil subsidence." In August of the same year, the same gas pipeline was damaged in the Volgograd region after explosions near the village of Dinamovskoye. Furthermore, on September 9, in the Penza region, a series of explosions disabled a trunk oil pipeline and a regional gas pipeline, and a flare fire with a flame column of up to 70 meters was recorded near the village of Volchkovo.