Russia’s Rosneft energy company has suspended crude processing after a Ukrainian drone strike on November 15 damaged key facilities.
“The plant is expected to remain idle until the end of the month. No loadings are planned before December 1,” a source within Rosneft told Reuters. The fire that followed the drone attack, forced the shutdown of the refinery’s main crude distillation unit, which with an annual capacity of over 8 million metric tons, amounts to 48% of the plant’s total capacity. Debris from one of the drones caused fire at one of the industrial facilities of the refinery, Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkos said in a social media post, without providing further details about the incident.
It should be noted that Ryazan oil refinery processed 13.1 million metric tons of crude in 2024, which accounts to around five percent of Russia’s overall refining volumes. Apart from crude oil, Ryazan refinery produced 2.2 million metric tons of gasoline, 3.4 million metric tons of diesel, and 4.3 million metric tons of fuel oil.
Ukraine has scaled up long range attacks on Russia’s energy facilities with the aim to cripple Moscow’s funding of the war of invasion that was launched in February 2022. The coordinated attacks involving missiles and drones have reduced approximately 20 percent of Russia’s oil processing capacity, according to official Ukrainian sources.
