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On 10/15/2025 at 8:55 AM, atomheartbevo said:

1,400 km in.

 

There are 3 Bashnet Refineries in the Ufa area, Ufa (160,000 BPD), Ufaneftekhim (190,000 BPD, and Novoil (120,000 BPD), with the 3 totaling 470,000 BPD of capacity, and covering over 4,600 acres, or ~ 7 square miles. In Austin, TX, the area between Mopac and I-35, and 38th Street to Town Lake is ~ 3,700 acres.  The total refining capacity here is comparable to Highway 225 in Deer Park, or along I-10 in Lake Charles.

In the screenshot photo in the OP, you can see a lot of green open space within the refineries. That is not common to the few US Refineries I have been to. With so many different pieces of equipment in the refinery, and as spread out as they are, it is very difficult to tell what exactly was hit, but one thing they all have in common is everything  makes big fireballs with thick black smoke. 

.and image.png.e6c1f9aa28acb1424903b3c875b71b29.png

 

On 10/16/2025 at 12:59 AM, atomheartbevo said:

@PTINS curious what you think of this

IEA Sees Drone Strikes Weighing on Russia Oil-Processing Till Mid-2026 - Bloomberg

"The impact from Ukrainian drone strikes will suppress Russia’s refinery processing rates until at least mid-2026, the International Energy Agency says in its latest monthly oil-market report... '

Previously, we had assumed a normalization of refining activity as we approached year-end but now embed a more cautious outlook,' the Paris-based agency said in a report on Tuesday. The IEA currently sees Russian processing rates at just under 5 million barrels a day through June 2026, and a recovery toward 5.4 million barrels a day later, with the outlook to be revised as more information becomes available. '

The increasingly widespread and significant Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian oil refineries and infrastructure' has so far cut the nation’s crude processing by an estimated 500,000 barrels a day, the agency said...

With the drone strikes weighing on refinery runs, Russia raised its crude exports in September to 5.1 million barrels a day, the highest since May 2023, according to the IEA. Still, the nation’s oil-export revenues declined to a three-month low of $13.4 billion, the agency estimated.

The decline came as Russia’s crude-supply revenues, which rose $200 million month-on-month, were more than offset by a $440 million drop for oil-product exports, the report said. According to the IEA calculations, Russian fuel supplies to other countries in September reached 2.4 million barrels a day, the lowest in a decade, excluding April 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic."

 

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I updated my listing of the Russia Refineries over 100,000 BPD, showing the individual process units that have been targeted and/or damaged. In most cases, i think if the large pressure vessel itself was damaged, it is basically a total loss, which would probably take a year to replace, and require a labor force of 500-1,000+ people. Some of these individual towers are 10+ feet in diameter, 100+ feel tall, and refine 100,000+ BPD, or a tank truck full of gasoline every 2-3 minutes.  Just to replace the vessel may take 6 months, with another 6-12 months to replace all the other related equipment.

As so many of there are linear processes, and interruption in the chain is important, but not necessarily critical. DIesel is a relatively dirty fuel compared to Jet fuel or gasoline, but at the end of the day any "off-spec" fuel would probably work okay with a smallish degradation in performance.  I'm betting the Russia and US refining standards would never be confused with each other.

image.png.a36136edbca3a7628bbfaa256b3bea58.png 

I think early in the campaign, Ukraine was content with the equivalent of lobbing grenades over the fence and hoping something blew up. In the past 6 months, they started identifying by name and number the process units they targeted and/or hit, which is indicative of better targeting intelligence, and better weapons and technology.

image.png.8d7ce18ed8eed4381467a8c7a666adf3.png

One can infer from the vessel numbers that their multiple units that have similar functions, with the newer versions being bigger and better versions of the older ones. The concept of a "refinery capacity" is kind of a nebulous term, as it is probably the capacity of everything there, when there is a low probability that it all operates at the same time. A lot of the equipment would be an either or operation, but not both. That makes determining the degree to which refining capacity has been reduced not much better than an educated guess.

On 10/16/2025 at 2:23 AM, atomheartbevo said:

One other thing - if the remaining refineries/operations have to somehow boost their output/throughput, that seems like a recipe for long-term wear and tear.

Most equipment operates better at higher rates. Most of the refining equipment are static process vessels with fluids moving in and between them the only "moving parts." The motors driving pumps and fans are relatively simple machines that are basically on or off, with not a lot of difference between operating at 50% load v. 90% load.

The most critical thing is the predictive and preventative maintenance on the dynamic pieces. In a higher demand/price environment, the equipment usually operates near the  capacity, and even the best companies are prone to delay scheduled maintenance until prices normalize. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. The concept of "run to fail" usually works like it sounds. Please note that delaying maintenance is not the same as compromising safety.  Though I don't think maintenance or safety are very important in Russian facilities these days, or if they ever were. 

Gas processing is similar to oil refining, but gas is much different than oil. One big pump can move a lot of oil. It takes a bunch of really big compressors to move a lot of gas, either large gas turbines with complex and expensive rotating assemblies, or reciprocating compressors that by their nature, are machines that require constant maintenance. Most companies have learned that regular maintenance means regular maintenance.

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