Three oil refineries in Russia — Volgograd, Ilsky, and Yaysky — were unable to complete scheduled repairs in October due to Western sanctions, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service.
The shutdown of these refineries is expected to negatively affect domestic refining volumes, the fulfillment of export obligations, worsen fuel supply issues on the domestic market, and increase maintenance and modernization costs for the plants.
The monthly refining capacity during the downtime is expected to be 1.8 to 2 million tons.
"The real reasons for the refinery downtime in Russia are limited access to Western equipment and components due to international sanctions and the inability to replace foreign spare parts necessary for maintenance and modernization," said the message.
In fact, Russia's import substitution program has not yielded significant results. Russian equipment manufacturers supply only about 30-45% of the market's needs, and only in certain components (pumps, compressors, reactors, etc.).
Russia has also failed to use China as an alternative supplier of equipment, as Chinese technologies are not always compatible with Russian equipment, sometimes requiring complete equipment replacement and significantly increasing repair and maintenance costs.
