“Gasoline prices hit a six-month high, up more than 20 percent since the start of the year, as supplies tighten and more plants are forced to shut production,” Politico reported, citing data released by Russia’s state-run agency TASS and RBC, among others.
Politico recalled that two fuel storage facilities owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft about 500 kilometers from the border with Ukraine were hit and severely damaged by Ukrainian drones last Wednesday. More than a dozen refineries in nine Russian regions have been similarly affected this year, the website wrote.
It’s like a mosquito
“It’s like a mosquito — if you can’t find it, you can’t kill it, and it keeps coming back night after night, you’re exhausted,” Politico quoted Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer and NATO planner, as saying. “It’s a very good way to take pressure off the front lines,” he added.
The Kremlin is worried about fuel shortages. He is messing around with production and is considering going back to E3 gasoline
Europe
As a result of the Ukrainian attacks, Moscow has cut fuel exports to near-historic lows, shipping just over 712,000 tonnes of diesel and fuel oil last week, compared with more than 844,000 in the same week in 2023, according to the website.
“For Moscow, this is a political as well as a military problem. In addition to being essential to Russia’s war effort, cheap fuel is also a key part of President Vladimir Putin’s pitch to the public as a cure for lagging wages and a weak ruble,” Politico said, noting that the fuel problem will continue to trend.
Prices won’t drop anytime soon
Igor Yushkov, an analyst at Russia’s National Energy Security Fund, told Russian media this week that prices were unlikely to drop anytime soon — and the country may have to import gasoline from stocks stored in neighboring Belarus.
Russia secures gasoline in Kazakhstan and Belarus due to Ukrainian attacks on refineries
War in Ukraine
Politico recalled that Moscow was already forced to ban gasoline and diesel exports last year due to shortages in the domestic market, where regulators kept prices low to appease motorists and artificially support the agricultural sector.
As fuel fetched higher prices internationally, middlemen sold cheap gasoline abroad that was intended for use in Russia, creating an expanding black market. Moscow lifted the export ban in November, but announced the six-month export ban again on March 1 this year, also due to the Ukrainian attacks.
Moscow must choose
While most Western countries stopped importing refined Russian fuels such as gasoline and diesel, the United Arab Emirates, along with a handful of South American and North African countries, continued to buy them to take advantage of low prices or to re-export them. “Moscow will now have to choose between maximizing the cash flows that fill its war chest and ensuring that its soldiers and civilians can fill up their tanks and cars,” comments Politico.
“Ukraine’s ‘physical sanctions’ may precipitate real ones,” Maria Shagina, an expert on the Russian economy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the website. “Kyiv has found that Moscow’s technological vulnerabilities and Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries are accelerating the impact of Western sanctions, which already have these refiners scrambling to replace Western equipment, spare parts and software,” she added.
An oil refinery was on fire in Russia
Europe
