May 14 (Reuters) \u2013 Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russia\u2019s energy infrastructure, doubling the number of oil refineries targeted since the start of the year, according to information posted on social media by Russian officials.<\/p>\n
The \u200bstrikes, which have also hit pipelines and storage facilities, have reduced Russia\u2019s \u200coil output \u2013 the world\u2019s third-largest after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia \u2013 adding pressure to Moscow\u2019s federal budget, where oil and gas taxes account for roughly a quarter of revenue.<\/p>\n
The Paris-based International Energy Agency said on Wednesday that Russia\u2019s crude output fell by 460,000 barrels per day in April \u200cfrom a \u200byear earlier to around 8.8 million bpd.<\/p>\n
That is limiting \u2060Moscow\u2019s ability to take advantage \u2060of a surge in energy prices linked to the Iran war, and providing a boost to Ukraine as it struggles with waning U.S. support for a war now in its fifth year.<\/p>\n
MAJOR PLANTS HIT<\/p>\n
Russian oil production peaked in the \u200blate 1980s but collapsed after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union due to underinvestment. It recovered in the 2000s and 2010s reaching a post-Soviet high in \u20602019 just before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Since launching its \u2060campaign in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has curtailed or \u200bstopped publishing several categories of sensitive data, including oil output.<\/p>\n
Reuters calculations show Ukrainian drone attacks \u200bknocked out about 700,000 bpd of refining capacity between January and \u200cMay across 16 refineries, some hit more than once, compared with eight refineries in the same period of 2025.<\/p>\n
In March, the capacity of primary refining units hit reached nearly 1 million bpd and exceeded that level again in April.<\/p>\n
Overall, since January, 35 primary \u2060distillation units with combined capacity of more than 390,000 metric tons per day, or 2.85 million bpd, have been forced offline due to drone damage or related disruptions.<\/p>\n
That compares \u2060with 12 units with capacity \u200cof over 187,000 tons per day, or 1.37 million \u2060bpd, in January to May 2025.<\/p>\n
Major plants in Kirishi in \u200bwestern Russia, \u200cNizhny Novgorod on the Volga river, Perm in the Urals \u200bmountains and \u2060Tuapse on the Black Sea have been among those hit.<\/p>\n
Including repeat strikes, more than 40 shutdowns of primary units linked to external impacts have been recorded this year, according to industry sources.<\/p>\n
The IEA said Russia\u2019s oil product exports fell by 340,000 bpd in April from March to 2.2 million bpd, the lowest level in its records.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Reuters. \u200bEditing by Mark Potter)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 14 (Reuters) \u2013 Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russia\u2019s energy infrastructure, doubling the number of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":{"0":"post-19440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}