Ukrainian drone attacks on 10 Russian oil refineries knocked out at least 17% of Russian oil refining capacity — the equivalent of 1.1 million barrels per day.
This was calculated by Reuters.
According to Sergei Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and former top manager at “Gazprom Neft”, the affected refineries have lost only part of their capacity, but even this could create problems with domestic fuel supplies.
Over the past month, Ukraine has attacked the Volgograd “Lukoil” refinery, the Ryazan “Rosneft” refinery, the “Novoshakhtinsk” refinery, and a number of other enterprises in the Rostov, Samara, and Saratov regions, and the Krasnodar Territory.
The attacks disrupted Russian refineries and oil exports, causing gasoline shortages in some regions of Russia. The strikes came at a time of peak demand for gasoline in Russia from tourists and farmers.
Reuters writes that even before the massive attacks, in July, Russia restricted gasoline exports due to a sharp increase in domestic demand. This led to a fuel shortage in parts of the occupied Ukrainian territories, in the southern regions of Russia and even in the Far East.
Drivers were forced to switch to more expensive brands of fuel due to the shortage of the usual A-95. For example, in Vladivostok, a Reuters journalist recorded long lines of cars at gas stations. Local authorities explained this by the seasonal influx of tourists.
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