{"id":57183,"date":"2026-08-31T05:39:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/57183\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T05:39:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:39:06","slug":"running-on-empty-russias-fuel-shortage-is-here-to-stay-and-could-get-even-worse-the-insider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/57183\/","title":{"rendered":"Running on empty: Russia\u2019s fuel shortage is here to stay and could get even worse \u2014 The Insider"},"content":{"rendered":"

Estimates of the share of Russia\u2019s refining capacity that is currently out of commission vary depending on the methodology used. In early July, the Ukrainian General Staff put the figure at 42.74%<\/a>. At the end of July, the Financial Times estimated that 45%<\/a> of capacity was nominally offline, while more than 30% was actually idle. Actual refining volumes, meanwhile, had fallen to about 25\u201330% below normal levels, and Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) President Alexander Shokhin recently put the losses<\/a> at 25\u201330%. Whether the share of knocked-out capacity reaches 50% or more will depend on which of the three scenarios outlined below develops between now and the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Scenario one: escalation<\/p>\n

Ukraine maintains or increases the current pace and effectiveness of targeted strikes on hard-to-replace components, while Russia continues to struggle with sanctions that restrict imports of equipment and catalysts. In this scenario, the nominal share of capacity knocked out could approach 50% \u2014 or even exceed it \u2014 \u00a0as early as this autumn. Scheduled maintenance in September would only compound the problem by coinciding with the seasonal peak in demand.<\/p>\n

In this scenario, the shortage would worsen, but its impact would be uneven. The hardest-hit regions would be those dependent on a single nearby refinery or a vulnerable supply route, such as the Orenburg and Volgograd regions. Meanwhile, larger cities with diversified supplies would suffer less, even if restrictions on fuel purchases at gas stations would become almost universal.<\/p>\n

Formally, the military and security services would remain the priority for fuel supplies. On June 23, Vladimir Putin said<\/a> that the strikes would not affect the situation at the front. A month later, however, volunteers reported<\/a> shortages of several hundred liters of gasoline for some units. Further escalation could lead to more such cases.<\/p>\n

The government is unlikely to allow fuel prices to be determined freely by the market. Based on the experience of 2018, a renewed informal agreement with oil companies to freeze retail prices in exchange for budget subsidies is far more likely. Those subsidies are already costing the treasury hundreds of billions of rubles a month.<\/p>\n

The closest historical parallel is the 1973 oil crisis in the West. Authorities in several countries issued fuel rationing cards in anticipation of shortages, although actual rationing never materialized. The United States introduced an odd-even system, while the Netherlands banned private car travel on Sundays. The restrictions lasted about six months and ended after oil exporters reached a political decision to lift the embargo.<\/p>\n

Because Russia\u2019s current crisis is driven by war rather than market forces, resolving it quickly would require an end to the strikes themselves. For now, Putin\u2019s public assertion<\/a> that there have been no \u201ccritical consequences\u201d \u2014 despite the loss of a third of the country\u2019s refining capacity \u2014 suggests that he not preparing to make concessions when it comes to the war.<\/p>\n

Scenario two: a plateau with partial adaptation<\/p>\n

Under this scenario, the strikes continue at roughly their current level, but Russia gradually builds alternative supply chains for equipment through China and other Asian countries, increases toll refining at Kazakh refineries, and expands imports of finished fuel.<\/p>\n

Nominally idled capacity would stabilize at 30\u201340%, with acute shortages occurring locally after each major strike, but without the panic seen previously.<\/p>\n

Fuel imports and negotiations with Kazakhstan can be scaled up within weeks, whereas establishing reliable alternative supply chains for catalysts and equipment for primary refining units would take years. By the end of 2026 Russia could close only part of this gap at best. The \u201cplateau,\u201d therefore, would not mean recovery, but stabilization at a lower level.<\/p>\n

Another question is why the refineries are not better protected in the first place. Effective air defense and electronic warfare systems remain scarce military resources, meaning Russia simply does not have the capacity to protect all such facilities simultaneously. Moreover, the oil refining industry, even at state-owned companies, is formally part of the commercial sector, which the government is not obliged to protect as heavily as its military infrastructure. The Moscow Refinery, for example, is located in the country\u2019s most heavily defended air defense zone, yet it still suffered critical damage.<\/p>\n

Economic fatigue is another issue that deserves attention. Repairing a single complex unit at a refinery the size of those in Ryazan or Tyumen could cost in the range of $50\u2013100 million, while total payments to oil companies through the fuel-price damper mechanism and subsidies have already exceeded<\/a> 1.2 trillion rubles ($14 billion) since the crisis began. Some refineries (like the one in Novoshakhtinsk) have also publicly complained<\/a> about mounting debts to contractors and delayed wage payments following a series of Ukrainian strikes.<\/p>\n

In other words, both the government and individual companies could run out of money before the Ukrainian campaign comes to an end.<\/p>\n

Scenario three: de-escalation<\/p>\n

If Ukraine reduces the intensity of its strikes on oil refineries for political or military reasons, or if it shifts its focus to other targets while damaged refineries are able to complete repairs, some Russian regions could return to pre-crisis conditions at gas stations by November. Even so, according to most estimates, overall refining volumes would remain 10\u201315% below 2020\u20132024 levels. This residual shortfall represents irreversible losses that are highly unlikely to be recovered by the end of the year, even if the strikes cease altogether.<\/p>\n

The Moscow Refinery offers the clearest example. Both of its primary refining units were knocked out in June, and according to an estimate<\/a> by Sinara Investment Bank, repairs could take up to a year and cost $1 billion. Reports circulated<\/a> on social media that the refinery had resumed processing two weeks after the attack, b\u2014ut the report appears to have been false \u2014 there has been no official confirmation, and there has been no corresponding improvement in the situation at Moscow gas stations. The refinery is not expected to resume operations before 2027.<\/p>\n

Likely irreversible losses also include units dependent on sanctioned catalysts and other technologies licensed by Western companies. Efforts to replace them with Russian or Chinese alternatives by the end of the year is similarly unlikely, even if no further strikes are carried out against these facilities.<\/p>\n

And so, even under the most favorable scenario for Moscow, refining will not return to the pre-crisis level of 5.3\u20135.5 million barrels per day. At best, the energy industry will settle at a new, lower level of refining that becomes its baseline for years to come. For now, the second scenario appears the most likely, but Ukraine\u2019s focus on hard-to-replace components makes the even more pessemistic first scenario considerably more plausible than it would seemed just a month ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estimates of the share of Russia\u2019s refining capacity that is currently out of commission vary depending on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-57183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-russia","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183","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=57183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}