downtime of primary capacities at Russian refineries increased by 38% in July – Kommersant

In July, the retiring capacities of primary oil refining at Russian refineries increased by 38.2%, or 0.643 million tons compared to the previous plan, reaching 2.326 million tons. This is reported by Reuters, citing Refinitiv’s annual repair plan and industry sources.

The actual idle time of primary capacities amounted to 3.966 million tons, having decreased by 17.2%, or 0.824 million tons compared to May. In general, in January-July, the total actual downtime of primary processing capacities at Russian refineries amounted to 17.7 million tons. This is 32% or 4.279 million tons more than the original downtime schedule for the current year.

The volume of retired capacities for the specified period decreased by 31%, or 7.857 million tons year-on-year. Oil refining rose by 5.5 mln tons to 137.3 mln tons, according to industry sources. According to the current schedule, the volume of retired capacities in July compared to June may decrease by 41.3%, or 1.640 million tons. The increase in retired primary capacities in the current month was provided mainly due to:

• extension of the repair at the Astrakhan GPP of the primary unit with a capacity of 8,340 tons per day (100% capacity) for 27 days, until July 27);
• extension at the Komsomolsk Refinery of downtime of the primary unit (6,540 tons, 34% of the refinery’s capacity) for 31 days, until July 31;
• extension at the Krasnodar Refinery of the period of being in the reserve of AVT (4,570 tons, 53% of capacity) for 31 days, until August 1.

As Kommersant reported, oil refining in the Russian Federation in June increased by almost 5%, to about 750 thousand tons per day, compared to the average level in May. However, the exchange price of fuel, which is growing following the weakening of the ruble, was practically not affected. Growth of exchange prices has already led to losses at filling stations when selling gasoline, although retail prices are also gradually starting to increase.

Details – in the material “Kommersant” “Oil goes to gasoline”.

Laura Keffer