What will happen to the market after the permission to export gasoline

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Neft and Capital Internet portal on the prospects for the domestic market of petroleum products after lifting the ban on gasoline exports from the territory of the Russian Federation.

"It seems to me that this is rather the fulfillment of certain agreements between the government and oil companies, who asked to ease the restriction in order to implement all their contracts with contractors due to the temporary ban on gasoline supplies, to fulfill export obligations. Moreover, there is also the problem of overstocking oil depots, as well as the need to unload transport routes.

This is more a local story, not a strategy. It all depends not on the government's long-term plans, but on external risks. First of all, from possible drone attacks on oil refining facilities," said Alexey Gromov.

In his opinion, the main problem for increasing capacities for petrochemical enterprises, however, as well as oil refining, is sanctions from the West. With refineries, everything is a little simpler: the main part of the plans for their modernization in the country, which began in 2011, has almost been completed. Although in some cases, of course, there are problems with a shortage of equipment from Western suppliers. After the UAV raids at the beginning of the year on a number of oil refining facilities, part of the capacity was idle precisely because of the inability to quickly replace Western equipment.

"The modernization of refineries and the creation of petrochemical plants is a complex high—tech process. We made the first petrochemical enterprises based on foreign technologies. Now the problem is that it is not possible to quickly solve the difficulties with the lack of equipment. An oil refinery is a system of technological processes that are strongly interconnected. You can't just take one piece out of the puzzle if the whole system is built on a line from a Western manufacturer.

In a certain sense, it is easier to build a new plant from scratch than to integrate a component into a production line that is generally from another line. The development of petrochemistry has slowed down due to objective reasons. In order to develop the industry, it is necessary to understand the technological base for these projects. Most likely, other equipment suppliers will be found that could replace our expectations from Western companies," the expert concluded.