"Refineries are running out of steam"

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, provided detailed comments for the automotive publication drom.ru about the crisis in the Russian fuel market and the prospects for its completion.

Alexey Belogoryev describes what is happening on the market as a dynamic state where the situation is changing every week.

— Each region has its own crisis, depending on the availability of existing processing facilities there, logistical problems, the share of independent gas stations and the structure and dynamics of demand. And since some damaged refinery units are taken out of service for repairs, while others are returned to service, the geography of production is constantly changing, and logistics follows suit, the expert explains. And logistics often fails to keep up with these changes. A typical example is the availability of diesel fuel. Overall, there is no shortage of it in Russia; production exceeds domestic demand. But in many regions, there are still difficulties with it precisely because of the constant reshaping of supply logistics.

By the way, both regional authorities and independent traders often cite difficulties with logistics, confirming the challenges: large fuel supplies are often transported by rail, which has its own inertia, so switching a region from one refinery to another requires time to coordinate a new supply schedule. Belogoryev says that the most difficult situation is in Crimea and Tuva, and this is primarily due to logistics. The seasonal decline in demand begins in October–November, but, according to his estimates, this factor does not play a decisive role in this case.

— The 2026 crisis is not related to demand, but to production dynamics. And it’s hard to predict what will happen to production in October–November. We shouldn’t forget that some of the planned refinery maintenance has been moved from summer to late autumn, which further limits supply, the expert says.

— The existing factories are currently operating at full capacity, and the reserves at the oil depots, excluding the very operational ones, have been depleted — in other words, there is no “safety cushion,” apart from imports and the production of lower‑grade gasoline.

Importing gasoline helps to mitigate the situation, but overall, it doesn’t look like a panacea. The combined capacity of the two existing oil refineries in Belarus is more than ten times lower than the normal volume of oil refining in Russia, and supplies from India are complicated by logistics issues and the high cost of such gasoline.