Russia's average oil refining throughput in July dropped to 3.91 million barrels per day, the lowest since March 2005, Bloomberg reported, citing data from EA Analytics, a unit of British consultancy Energy Aspects. The figure is more than 1.4 million barrels per day below the July 2023 average.
Ukrainian drone strikes on oil infrastructure may have destroyed 20 to 40 percent of Russia's refining capacity, the Financial Times reported last week, citing unnamed analysts. Production is also declining: in June, output fell to 8.928 million barrels per day, the lowest since at least February 2024, Bloomberg noted, citing OPEC data.
Amid the fuel crisis, Russia's largest bank, Sber, launched a service on July 9 that lets users locate gas stations with the fuel they need. The service, which covers about 29,000 stations nationwide and uses anonymized payment data, has been used by 26 million people, the bank's press service told the business daily Vedomosti. Users can check availability of AI-92, AI-95, AI-98 and other gasoline grades.
The service's heaviest users are in Moscow (8.21% of users), St. Petersburg (4.61%), Kazan (3.69%) and Krasnodar (3.58%). The core audience is men aged 35 to 56, who make up 66% of users.
By late June, gasoline shortages, sales disruptions or purchase restrictions had been recorded in 88 of Russia's 89 regions, the investigative outlet The Insider calculated. In some regions, authorities limited fuel sales per customer, banned filling canisters, or declared a state of heightened alert.
Russia's gasoline production has fallen to about 65% of summer demand, Reuters reported, estimating the daily shortfall at 40,000–45,000 metric tons.
The crisis is now affecting global markets. To contain the shortage, Russian authorities imposed an embargo on exports of all fuels, including diesel, which is normally exported in large volumes, Deutsche Welle reported. On the day the embargo was announced, diesel futures in the EU and the U.S. surged more than 10%.
Diesel production in Russia has now fallen to roughly the level of domestic consumption, industry sources told Reuters. The export ban is currently in place until July 31.
The biggest difficulties from the supply halt will be faced by Russia's main petroleum product buyers: Turkey, Brazil, Morocco, Libya, Ghana and Tunisia, Isaac Levi, an expert at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told Deutsche Welle. He said the rerouting of trade flows will push up prices worldwide.
On July 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Ukrainian attacks are creating "certain problems with petroleum products." He said the situation should gradually improve, and that a supply system is being created for annexed Crimea that Ukraine will find "very difficult to reach."