Russian refineries show the lowest production in 12 years: The effect of effective drone attacks. [translated]

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1. Highlights:

   *It wasn’t that bad even during the pandemic. As a result of precise attacks by Ukrainian drones, refineries in Russia had to focus on repairing damage instead of production. It turned out that plants, often built on a turnkey basis by Western companies, have nothing to replace the destroyed elements.*

   *In total, by the end of this year, oil processing in Russian refineries, taking into account the December data, is expected to reach 266.9 million tons – **8.1 million tons less than last year. This level is the lowest since 2012**, when refineries processed 265.4 million tons of crude material, according to Reuters. Even in the year of the fight against coronavirus, Russian refineries processed 270.0 million tons of oil.*

   *The decrease in crude oil processing in Russian refineries in 2024 compared to 2023 was largely due to downtime at Russia’s largest such plants – Tuapse refinery (-5.5 million tons, -59.6%), Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery (-3.4 million tons, -21.8 percent) and Novoshakhtinsk (-1.5 million tons, -31.4%), according to Reuters, citing analysts’ estimates.*

   *Reuters sources have previously reported that Russian refineries are experiencing an acute financial crisis due to rising raw material costs, falling oil prices and rising loan rates. Small private refineries with simple processing lines suffer even more.*

   *Titov [of the Russian Institute of Energy and Finance] noted that drone attacks had an impact on a decline in crude oil refining in the Russian Federation, but the reduction in refinery margins also had negative consequences for production.*

   Fuel at gas stations is the **most expensive in 13 years**:

   *Despite the Kremlin’s efforts to limit fuel price increases at Russian gas stations, in 2024 Russian drivers and transport companies faced a record 13-year increase in retail gasoline prices after a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries.*

   *According to Rosstat (russian statistics agency), between the beginning of the year and December 23, gasoline in the Russian Federation increased in price by an average of 11 percent, to 60.57 rubles per liter. At the end of the year, the increase in gasoline prices will be the largest since 2011, when, according to Rosstat, prices at gas stations increased by 14.9 percent.*

2. Good. Continue the good work, Ukraine.

3. I guess the goal is to maintain production to not increase oil price worldwide, but at the same time killing russia benefits by forcing it to buy the refining (From countries like India) ?

4. One thing I hadn’t appreciated before:

   Even when the damage caused by a drone strike is repairable, the cost of those repairs has been driven higher by inflation. They can only be paid for by borrowing at today’s record-high interest rates. This is on top of all of the more direct problems caused by sanctions.

   So even if a given facility can return to something like normal production levels after a drone strike, the company operating the facility ends up in a seriously crippled state. And this becomes more true as ruzzia’s economy continues to fall appart.

   Conclusion: send more drones!

5. Production decreased 2.9% year on year. It’s a decrease, but that means they still had 97.1% of the previous years output even with these drone attacks. Gonna need more drones

6. The aim is to make them reach a production level of zero.

   Keep up the good work, Slava Ukraini!

7. Well, that and sanctions probably.

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