What happened

A fire broke out at SOCAR's Heydar Aliyev oil refinery in Baku's Nizami district after safety procedures were not followed while preparing a pump on the primary processing unit for maintenance during a shift change; the crew handed the unit to a repair team without properly clearing fuel oil from the line despite a written warning. The refinery shut for roughly 40 days for repairs, during which SOCAR imported 40,000 tonnes of AI-92 gasoline to cover domestic demand. Azerbaijan's State Security Service opened a criminal case, and the on-duty chief operator, Sadig Humbat Garayev, was detained under safety-violation charges. This was an accidental industrial fire, not an attack.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.