The fuel crisis comes out of the freeze: regions restore restrictions.
In the first ten days of November, there were at least five attacks on refineries - in Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Krasnodar Territory and Leningrad Region. On November 9, one of the country's largest refineries, the Kirishi plant in the Leningrad region, was attacked. As a result of the attack, one or more main oil refining units caught fire.
Against this background, the geography of restrictions on the sale of fuels is expanding again. During the last few days, restrictions were introduced in the regions of Karelia, Buryatia, Arkhangelsk, Penza, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod, in the Transbaikal and Krasnoyarsk territories. In Crimea, Sevastopol and Kyiv, the restrictions have been in effect since June. Restrictions also appeared at Rosneft gas stations.
The head of the central bank, Elvira Neviolina, directly named the attacks on refineries, industrial plants and data centers as one of the factors limiting the production capacity of the Russian economy. This assessment stands in marked contradiction to the usual rhetoric of officials, who prefer to avoid the topic of damage from attacks on oil refining infrastructure or to downplay its extent.
The events of the last few days force us to reconsider the forecasts for the stabilization of the fuel market. Even the traditional seasonal factor - a decrease in the consumption of gasoline and other types of fuel during the autumn-winter period - stops compensating for the growing supply problems.
According to one of the interlocutors, attacks on oil refineries have become regular, and the consequences of the attacks are becoming more and more apparent. In fact, this negates the positive effect of the two-week shutdown in October, when refineries were not attacked.
The industry's margin of safety is gradually being exhausted. The new wave of regional restrictions has not yet spread, but the geography of restrictions is expanding quite quickly.