Ukraine Strikes Russia’s Fourth-Largest Refinery, Disrupting 80,000 bpd
Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery—its fourth-largest and a key Rosneft asset southeast of Moscow—was forced to halt a major crude distillation unit after a Ukrainian drone attack set part of the facility ablaze this week, industry sources told Reuters.
The targeted unit, CDU-4, handles roughly 4 million metric tons of crude per year, or about 80,000 bpd—nearly a quarter of the refinery’s total capacity. The stoppage, combined with secondary unit shutdowns including a reformer, vacuum gasoil hydrotreater, and catalytic cracker, has sharply reduced output. Rosneft has not commented, but sources say the plant continues limited operations.
Ukraine said it hit the Ryazan refinery, one of a growing number of strikes on Russian fuel sites as U.S.-led peace efforts drag on. Kyiv’s drones have been taking aim at the infrastructure feeding Russia’s war machine, and the Kremlin has been pointing to those same attacks to explain gasoline and diesel shortages at home.
Ryazan processed 13.1 million tons of crude last year, yielding 2.3 million tons of gasoline, 3.4 million tons of diesel, and 4.2 million tons of fuel oil. A prolonged outage could pressure domestic fuel availability further just as Russia heads into winter, when heating demand peaks and logistical networks tighten.
For global markets, the direct supply hit is small, but the symbolism isn’t. Every successful strike deep inside Russia adds to the risk premium baked into oil prices and tests the Kremlin’s ability to protect the infrastructure that underpins its export revenues.
As the Ryazan blaze cools, markets are still watching for how Moscow will respond—possibly with another round of tightened export controls.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
Sanctions Halt Oil Flows to Serbia as Russian-Owned NIS Faces Refinery Shutdown
Russia-owned Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) has halted crude processing as U.S. sanctions choke oil flows to Serbia, triggering fears of a fuel shortage ahead of winter. A shipment of roughly one million barrels of Kazakh KEBCO crude that arrived at Croatia’s Omisalj terminal on 9 October remains blocked after deliveries through the JANAF pipeline were suspended on 8 October, according to multiple industry sources cited by Reuters on Friday.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control allowed a sanctions waiver on NIS to expire on 9 October, formally cutting the company off from international crude purchases. NIS, 56 percent owned by Gazprom Neft, runs Serbia’s only refinery at Pan?evo, which processes about 4.8 million tonnes of crude per year and supplies over 80 percent of the country’s gasoline and diesel demand. Without new cargoes, refining operations could stop by early November, officials and traders said.
Serbia’s government has downplayed the immediate risk. President Aleksandar Vu?i? said current inventories are sufficient through the end of the year, but analysts warned that prolonged disruption would force the country to depend on product imports through neighboring EU states.
The JANAF pipeline from Croatia had been Serbia’s primary supply line for Russian and Kazakh crude since 2022. Its closure underscores the limited flexibility of Balkan energy logistics, where few alternative routes exist and domestic storage capacity remains constrained.
Earlier this month, regional analysts said the U.S. measures were likely to hit Serbia’s downstream sector hard, calling NIS’s exposure “a critical vulnerability” for the Balkan state.
Serbia is now seeking replacement cargoes via Hungary and exploring temporary swaps through regional refiners. Whether those can arrive fast enough to keep Pan?evo running will determine if Serbia avoids a full-blown fuel crunch.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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