FSUOGM: Russian refining runs recover after drone strikes

Russia’s oil refining sector has recovered from disruptions caused by a series of Ukrainian drone strikes earlier this year, with throughput picking up in the second half of February, according to Bloomberg.

Ukrainian forces began targeting Russian refineries with drones over a year earlier, with the aim of cutting off fuel supply to the Russian military and the industry that supports Moscow’s war effort. Recent months have seen a significant increase in the number of those attacks, and some facilities deep in the Russian heartland have been hit.

However, while Russian fuel production and exports have fallen as a result of the attacks, much of the damage inflicted has been relatively minor, allowing fast repairs. Furthermore, Russia’s overall refining capacity is underutilised, so the impact of outages at some plants has been partly offset by increased throughput at other unaffected ones.

Russia processed 5.44mn barrels per day (bpd) of oil in February 15-28, Bloomberg reported on March 4, citing a source. That is 226,000 bpd, or just over 4%, more than the level in the first half of the month. According to the news agency, almost all the plants targeted by drones have restored processing rates back to their previous levels in the last couple of weeks.

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