Historically unprecedented shutdowns: 38% of Russia's oil refining capacity halted

The Russian fuel market has plunged into a crisis it has never seen before following Ukrainian drone attacks, which have hit more than two dozen major oil refineries in Russia since early August.

Source: Russian news outlet RBC, citing data from analytical agency Siala

Details: As of 28 September, 38% of the country's crude oil refining capacity, or 338,000 tonnes per day, was idle.

The total capacity available for producing petrol and diesel fell by 6% in August and a further 18% in September.

The scale of refinery shutdowns has become historically unprecedented: it surpassed the August record (23%, 206,000 tonnes per day) as well as previous records in May 2022 (196,000 tonnes per day) and May 2020 (164,000 tonnes per day).

Around 70% of the shutdowns, according to Siala's calculations, were the result of drone attacks, which by the end of September had taken out roughly a quarter of Russia's refining capacity or about 236,000 tonnes per day.

Four more Russian refineries halted production in September following Ukrainian drone strikes. They included Kinef in Leningrad Oblast, the country's second-largest refinery, which shut down on 14 September, and Rosneft's Ryazan refinery, one of the five largest, which stopped on 5 September. The Novokuibyshevsk refinery halted processing on 20 September, followed by Gazprom's Astrakhan refinery on 22 September.

Russia newspaper Kommersant reported that September's petrol output fell by 1 million tonnes, leaving the domestic market with a 20% supply gap.

Russian oil companies have limited options to mitigate the crisis, according to Economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, quoted by The Moscow Times, an independent Amsterdam-based news outlet. Repairs to the damaged refineries could take months, particularly due to sanctions that have blocked the supply of Western equipment used for upgrades in the 2010s, which cannot be easily replaced with Chinese alternatives.

Background: The Russian government has extended the temporary ban on petrol exports and imposed restrictions on other types of fuel.

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