Russia Will Start Buying Gasoline From China After Almost 40% Of Refinery Capacity Is Shut Down

Three companies will be able to supply gasoline from Asia.

Russian authorities have prepared a package of measures to start importing gasoline from China and other Asian states to compensate for the fuel shortage that has engulfed the country after drone attacks on major refineries.

According to "Kommersant", in addition to China, Moscow also expects to buy gasoline from South Korea and Singapore. For this purpose, it is planned to zero import duties on fuel coming through certain checkpoints in the Far East. At the same time, the state will compensate importers for the difference between world prices and domestic prices at the expense of the budget.

Three companies will be able to supply gasoline from Asia - Rosneft, JSC NOC and state-owned VO Promsyryeimport. In this case it will be possible to send to the central part of the Russian Federation gasoline produced at Siberian refineries - about 150 thousand tons per month.

In addition, the government expects to increase imports of gasoline from Belarus, as well as to lift the ban on the use of monomethylaniline (MMA) - octane-increasing additive, which allows to increase production. Due to its high toxicity and oncology risks, it is banned in most countries around the world, and was used in Russia until 2016.

Despite the measures taken to protect the fuel and energy complex facilities, there are risks of further deterioration of the situation with the supply of oil products to the domestic market, "Kommersant" quotes an appeal sent to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.

At the end of September, a record 38% of refinery capacity (338,000 tons per day) was idle in the country. At the same time, 70% of the downtime was the result of UAV raids, which managed to hit more than 20 major oil refineries since the beginning of August.

In September, four more Russian refineries stopped production. Among them are Kinef in the Leningrad region, which has the second largest capacity in Russia, and Rosneft's Ryazan refinery, which is among the top 5 largest. The first one shut down on September 14, the second one - on September 5. The Novokuibyshevsk refinery also stopped refining on September 20, and Gazprom's Astrakhan GPP stopped refining on September 22. As a result, regions from Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Nizhny Novgorod Region and Crimea have faced fuel shortages, where the sale of more than 30 liters of gasoline per hand has been banned since the beginning of the week.

The authorities see an opportunity to send an additional 350,000 tons of gasoline and 100,000 tons of diesel fuel per month to the domestic market through imports from Asia and Belarus, as well as reducing environmental requirements for refineries, Kommersant writes. In addition to MMA, the government is considering the possibility of allowing the sale of gasoline with an alcohol content of up to 10%, as well as raising the standards for aromatic hydrocarbons in it to 42%.

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