Russia expects oil refining in 2025 to be flat with 2024

The Russian energy ministry announced on Thursday that the country's oil refinery, coal and gas?production?will remain largely unchanged in 2025, compared with 2024, despite repeated Ukrainian drone attacks against energy facilities.

Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world, after Saudi Arabia and the United States. It also holds the largest known reserves of natural gas.

Since August, Ukraine has resumed drone strikes deep within Russia. The aim is to destroy?oil refineries and depots, and cripple Moscow’s largest source of funding

For the conflict in Ukraine

Ukrainian drones have struck at least 17 refineries, forcing Russia to reduce fuel exports and order additional drone defences.

The press service of the Russian energy ministry reported that "for 2025, we anticipate oil refining and gas production will remain at levels similar to those in 2024." He did not give any figures.

According to industry sources, Russian refineries were operating at a fraction of their full capacity prior to the attacks.

We were able mitigate

Their impact can be minimized by restarting spares at damaged and unaffected facilities, as well as by re-entering into service the units that have been attacked after repairs.

Estimates show that from January to October oil processing fell by 3% to 220 millions metric tons (5,2 million bpd).

Russia has a total refining capability of 6.6 million barrels per day, but sources in the industry say that it is rarely used to its full potential.

The rupture in ties between Russia and the West, which was once its largest gas buyer as well as a major revenue source, has undermined Russian gas exports.

Vedomosti

The Center of the Pricing Indexes (the Russian pricing agency) provided data to a newspaper in the last month that showed Russia's natural-gas output would decline by 2% to 673 billion cubic meters in 2025, after having increased by 7% in 2024. Reporting by Marina Bobrova and Olesya Astakhova; Writing by Maxim Rodionov, Editing by Muralikumar Aantharaman/Guy Faulconbridge

(source: Reuters)