8 March 2026
The suspension of oil product exports through the Baltic port of Ust-Luga on March 25 following an attack by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could force major refineries in the European part of Russia to reduce refining due to difficulties in exporting products, Reuters reports, citing market participants.
According to them, a drone strike at the Ust-Luga terminal damaged a railway overpass used for unloading petroleum products from tank cars. On Wednesday, the Ust-Luga Oil terminal stopped accepting shipments, including from the Kirishinefteorgsintez (Kinef) and Yaroslavnefteorgsintez (YANOS) refineries, as well as the Moscow and Ryazan refineries. Earlier, on March 22, the neighboring port of Primorsk was hit by a drone strike.
“Primorsk hasn’t been accepting diesel fuel since Monday, and Ust-Luga has stopped accepting gasoline and fuel oil since Wednesday. In a few days, we’ll have to reduce refining to a minimum, and then completely shut it down,” a source at a refinery in European Russia told Reuters.
The Ust-Luga terminal is one of Russia’s main fuel export hubs, with a throughput capacity of 30 million tons per year, including 19 million tons of heavy petroleum products. Actual fuel oil deliveries to the terminal in 2025 amounted to approximately 18 million tons, of which over 14 million tons are accounted for by the aforementioned refineries, according to traders.
According to their data, damage to the Baltic export infrastructure, which is hindering the export of fuel oil, is the biggest problem for Russian refineries. “We can somehow still squeeze additional gasoline and diesel fuel into the domestic market, but fuel oil is a huge problem,” noted one industry source.
Sources say that refineries supplying fuel for export through Ust-Luga have urgently begun searching for alternative routes for the export of dark petroleum products and have also begun optimizing their refining processes or reducing their throughput.
According to traders, the total oil refining capacity at Kinef, YANOS, the Moscow Oil Refinery, and the Ryazan Oil Refinery amounts to approximately 55 million tons.
Fuel oil, which accounts for 18% to 35% of the volume of refined oil at the aforementioned refineries, is not in demand within Russia, so the refineries are forced to export it, while the domestic market consumes almost all of its gasoline, and about two-thirds of its diesel fuel.
For refineries, the failure to export fuel oil threatens to halt operations. Furthermore, if its production is reduced by reducing refining, then the output of motor gasoline will fall proportionally, which is undesirable during a period of seasonal growth in demand for the product, sources note.
They reported that refineries are currently considering a set of anti-crisis measures to cope with the flow of fuel oil.
“In this situation, fuel oil is a bottleneck product. We’re considering how to minimize the yield of dark (oil products). We’ll recycle as much as possible into bitumen, bunker fuel, and thermal power plants. We’re looking at other ports where we can quickly redirect dark oil. We’ll have to reduce refining and maximize the utilization of secondary (capacities),” a source at the refinery said.
The timeframe for resuming the acceptance of petroleum products at the terminal in Ust-Luga is still unknown.
Meanwhile, one of the fuel oil suppliers to the port, the Kinef Oil Refinery, was itself attacked by a drone on March 26 and may reduce processing capacity for some time, which will partly alleviate the shortage of fuel oil handling capacity.
However, according to the source, quickly rerouting fuel oil volumes to other ports will still be challenging: there are no terminals in the northwest comparable in capacity to Ust-Luga, and deliveries to remote ports increase tank car turnaround times, requiring additional railcars and rail capacity.
The Ust-Luga Oil terminal has four double-ended railway ramps, three of which are designed for unloading fuel oil and vacuum gas oil. The ramps can simultaneously unload 526 tank cars. The terminal’s tank farm is designed to store 960,000 cubic meters of petroleum products. Three berths have been built for transshipment of fuel to tankers with deadweights of up to 300,000 tons.
And this amid a global oil crisis. Great timing for Ukraine, bad timing for the mafia state.