By Irina Aleksandrova
Published on
Russia’s unprecedented months-long petrol crisis has made the consequences of the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine palpable for ordinary citizens.
Continued Ukrainian attacks have been causing fires at refineries and disrupting petrol supplies nationwide. Queues at petrol stations are growing, along with public anger and anxiety.
In many regions petrol is now rationed, and long lines of cars stretch for hours along the roads. Social media is replete with videos of drivers expressing shock at the queues they encounter or arguing over empty pumps and rising prices.
“Television says one thing, reality is another. People are queuing everywhere,” said Andrei, a Moscow resident.
Another Moscow resident, Maxim, said he was spending hours in line. “A country that produces oil, yet there is no petrol. How is that even possible?”
Putin forced to admit petrol ‘problems’
By the end of June, reports of various restrictions on petrol sales had come in from more than half of Russia’s regions.
In some areas, the authorities imposed strict limits on all petrol stations, while elsewhere the major chains introduced caps on the amount of petrol they dispense.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare public concession, admitting that Ukrainian “attacks on our facilities are undoubtedly creating problems” and that Russia was “seeing a certain shortage” while insisting the situation was not critical.
According to Christopher Weafer, chief executive of Macro-Advisory, around one-third of Russia’s refining capacity has been knocked out.
Weafer said his estimate was based on fragmented information and industry sources, as the Russian state does not make relevant data public.
He pointed out that the petrol crisis “comes at a critical moment for the Russian economy, as the agricultural season and especially the harvest period is now gathering pace”.
At this time of year, the farm sector in any country has “a high demand for diesel fuel,” according to Weafer.
Repairing damaged refineries is complicated by sanctions. Ukrainian strikes have targeted specialised imported equipment, and sourcing replacements or spare parts around Western restrictions has made repairs slow and expensive.
Weafer said the Moscow refinery alone — which had supplied 40% of the capital and surrounding region’s petrol — would take at least three months to repair.
The volume of crude oil processed into petrol in Russia in June fell by 25% compared with the same period last year, to 3.95 million barrels per day – the lowest level in more than two decades.
Petrol production dropped by 17%, to 850,000 barrels per day (from 1.03 million barrels a year earlier), well below domestic demand. At the same time, Russia exports only relatively small volumes of petrol.
‘Sanction-style responses to Russia dragging out the war’
Since April, Ukraine has carried out more than 40 attacks on refineries, oil depots, terminals and other oil infrastructure facilities in Russia and the Moscow-occupied Crimean peninsula.
Ukrainian officials describe these strikes as a campaign intended to force Moscow to end the war by undermining its military logistics and supply lines and weakening Russia’s ability to wage offensive operations at the front.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Defence Forces struck the refinery in Ufa for the second time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced.
“For the second time, our sanction-style responses to Russia prolonging the war have reached the refinery in Ufa – one of Russia’s largest producers of lubricating oils. The distance is more than 1,300 kilometres from the front line,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
“Every day we implement our plan for applying Ukraine’s long-range sanctions. This is a completely fair response to everything Russia is doing against us,” Zelenskyy added.
“Peace is needed, and this is what the Russian leadership must realise. Russia has to end its war – and its leaders have every opportunity to do so,” he concluded.
Officials in Moscow have blamed the shortages on panic buying and urged motorists to fill up only when necessary. Exports of petrol and aviation fuel were curtailed, and a ban on diesel exports was also under consideration.
Shortages have reached remote parts of Russia where no strikes by Ukrainian drones on refineries have been recorded.