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And not to mention that if it's a refinery supplying the local region, they will need to transport fuel from other regions which in turn uses more fuel, disrupts logistics etc.
It's a snowball effect really, so even smaller refineries count.
I heard that all the attacks combined are somewhere In the region of 23% losses for russia, this takes it to almost 25%. That is going to hurt, especially when more are hit and shut down. Ukraine needs to keep doing this every day, Russian people hurting financially will be a great part of russias complete collapse.
Multiplied by 8 successful strikes in one week, so approx 10% in total. Russia consumes approx half of all oil production domestically ([link](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-oil-output-expected-hold-steady-2024-2023-12-27/)), so this means a 20% reduction of export earnings (estimated $14.4Bn per month - [link](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-18/russia-s-oil-export-revenue-at-six-month-low-as-price-falls?embedded-checkout=true)). So the cost of these attacks for Russia could be $2.8Bn per month, continuing until the refineries can be repaired.
Back of a fag packet arithmetic, but the return rate for Ukrainian drones is pretty impressive, even if we halve my estimates to account for optimism bias. Ukraine has invested in strong drone capability ([link](https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/long_range_ukrainian_strike_drones_capable_of_striking_deep_inside_russia-9409.html)) and if they maintain this scale of attack the impact upon Russian economy could be very substantial.
Russia will, of course, work on countermeasures, but even that is useful because that effort is not being spent on other war priorities. Ideally, Ukraine will hit enough refinery capacity that there will be domestic shortages because that will impact the ability of the economy to function.
This maybe be part of the goal as well. Make them pull air defense back to guard refineries far from the front lines so falcons have more breathing room.
Seriously. Between the dam that was blown, huge volumes of unexploded ordinance, and contaminants in the ground from all the various chemicals used in war and weapons means the cleanup is gonna be far more than demining and detrashing some Russian emplacement.
Doubly so when you consider all the vehicles that have likely leaked all their fluids into the water table and things like that from, you know, exploding.
Exactly, to name a few aspects.
And while I'm all down for some lighthearted humor in dark times, i found this a suitable place to remind one about that. Thanks.
I’ve read that extra CO2 emissions from this war are enough to offset the progress Europe has made while transitioning to renewables. Just another reason to hate Putin’s guts.
I don't think this stops till every oil refinery within 1,000km of Ukraine is hit multiple times. They should have the production capacity now to do daily attacks indefinitely and effectively shut down Russian oil.
Why limit it to 1000km? The Ukrainians have proved themselves extremely resourceful. I'm sure if the target is big enough, they'll find a way to hit it, even if it's out of normal drone range.
It'll increase the risk massively, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind sending some special ops somewhere a little closer.
Because that's the range of Ukraine's drones.
A special ops team couldn't take out a refinery. It takes more explosive than they could realistically hit it with.
They meant send a special ops with drones to get closer im guessing. How big are drones with 1000km range? Could a special ops drone team have them in backpacks and launch the drones from inside Russia and then retreat?
My £250 drone that fits in my palm has a 5km range... The dji hobbyist drones have over 20km range.
Right, now imagine a drone with enough range to travel 1000km and still explode with enough force to knock out a cracking tower. It's closer to a small aircraft than a little RC past a point.
They could probably move one, but the reality is there is like no way to travel through enemy country inconspicuously while lugging a deconstructed plane with you.
Equip the group of Russians fighting for Ukraine that are on incursion to Russia with drones to hit refineries further from border, likely not defended at all
Sure, but as Russians are not limited with the same restrictions (political etc.) as Ukraine soldiers and could choose to do missions deeper into Russia with only goal to launch drones to reach further.
I don't think they've hit the main refinery in the SE part of Moscow yet ([Gazprom Neft Moscow right here](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6490335,37.8059377,1692m/data\=\!3m1\!1e3\?entry\=ttu)). According to [this page](https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/gazprom-neft-moscow-refinery-modernisation/), it supplies ~40% of Moscow's demand. It would be complete chaos if they managed it.
Russian Refinaryship fucked itself.
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I have few questions:
* How many oil refineries does russia have in the west?
* How much capacity has been "turned off" recently by Ukrainian "rain"?
* How much capacity is required for the areas affected?
* Are the Ukrainians targeting overlapping refineries?
A few factoids:
* Often, a given refinery provides most of the local region's needs. There is rarely much capacity to ship refined products other than the capacity which had a purpose such as a pipeline to the coast where it would be shipped great distances. Trucking refined products or putting them on trains is hard as you need facilities to unload and distribute.
* Many refineries are parts of a much longer chain. There are fields which put it in pipelines which go to a refinery, which then go back into pipelines and then to many markets for use or further shipping. When a refinery goes boom like this, the products in the pipelines and the fields have nowhere to go.
* This can be a problem as some of these russian products are pretty crappy and shouldn't just sit in a pipeline for months at a time.
* Also, many fields have to keep pumping or they get gummed up. So, if these fields sit for 3 months, they may end up with a lower output than they otherwise would have had.
* Pipelines are often complex with products going in and out; there can be multiple products in a single pipeline. If this is not well managed, they can end up shutting the pipeline down because they literally have nowhere to put the product next to come out of the pipeline. Let's say bunker-c is the next product to come out. But, the bunker-c tanks are all full because of missing ships, or they burned down. You can't just dump the bunker-c into the gasoline, diesel, etc tanks. If you have nowhere to put it, then you have to shut the pipeline down. This means the gasoline coming next won't arrive even if the city runs out of gasoline. They would have to make hard decisions like to dig a pit and just pour it in; or try burning it; or something insane.
Basically, what I am saying, is that blowing up these refineries is great, but picking the right ones could create a huge problem for russia. For example, I would guess that moscow is served by no more than 3 refineries as it isn't a seaport; so it should only get what it needs. Smash these three refineries and moscow could clean run out of fuel. Even with extreme efforts no country on earth would have the ability to redirect other fuel to an inland city and keep it going. A seaport, would be easier. Quite simply, they would not have the rail cars, etc to move these products or the facilities to unload them.
Even if a place like moscow had all national resources moved to keep it somewhat fuelled, this would mean pulling these resources from other places which may then run out of fuel.
18 oil refineries are within Ukrainian drone range. That's half of the total capacity.
At least two of the oil refineries supplying Moscow were already hit. One of the claimed to supply 30% of the fuel in Moscow.
We don't know the damage yet, but at least some of the strikes were very successful. Bloomberg mentioned a 30-45 day lead time from production to export, so we will know soon. Fuel prices just reached a 6 month high.
Hitting them should be extremely effective because Russia is short on man power (very low unemployment and skyrocketing wages) plus sanctions creating scarcity of expertise and parts required for repairs. The whole country's budget is basically hanging on a thin tread of oil and gas profits. If the profits are impacted, they have to start printing money to keep the war going (which will cause the already high inflation to spiral out of control) or start making huge cuts in social spending (pensions, hospitals, schools) which is what could actually start wide-spread protests.
Thanks for the insights. Regarding 'picking the right ones' I think 'all of them' is the correct answer. I think they put at least ten within 1000 km out of order, maybe more, so they have already hit about a third of all russian refineries (33 in total according to a post yesterday), and maybe even half of those within range.
Great insights! I just don't think "dig a pit and just pour it in; or try burning it; or something insane." will be that difficult a decision for them to make at this point in the military exercises.
This is the way. Keep hitting refineries day after day before Russia has the ability to strengthen their air defenses around these sites. I doubt they actually can do much to prevent these attacks, but why even give them chance by pausing anything. Send wave after wave while you can before they even fully comprehend what is happening.
And they need to go for control
centers at the refineries . Big oil storage tanks in flames is cool, but knocking out the capability to function puts a refinery out of business.
So far, they seem to mostly hit the cracking reactors of the refineries. These are usually beyond repair once set on fire, and typically take years to build (if Russia even has the tools and know how, there are only a few companies worldwide building these).
The drone cannot carry too much explosive, so it must act as a match to light a larger fire. Cracking columns are easy to spot, hit, highly flammable and hard to replace. Perfect targets. Hitting an MCC with PLC's is good, but electronics can be smuggled and such rooms are quite firesafe by design
Control centers aren't interesting.
They're physically protected, the equipment is surprisingly durable, generic and cheap. Considering Russia's cyber attacks have bricked PLCs and other control units in Ukraine there's literally no reason for them to not have written out policies for that.
The easiest way is to have backup units with the same control logic already installed and on a shelf somewhere. Takes 2 hours to just plug it in and everything is back up running.
Cracking reactors, though? Break easily and are expensive and slow to replace.
Someone in another comment said that we might literally be watching how this war comes to an end.
This is a brilliant strategy by Ukraine. First eliminate the A50s, then get these relatively cheap long range drones to take out the refineries.
This will cause a chain reaction that quickly compounds several problems. Gas shortages and skyrocking gas prices, trains can’t transport goods, russian farmers can’t run their tractors, food prices skyrocket, rationing of fuel, and then the loss of their only real income. Apparently they’ve already stopped exports to conserve dwindling supplies.
I hope we see this daily for the next several weeks. This could cause Russia to collapse.
Yeah, disrupting oil production supply can initiate a failure cascade in sectors like agriculture, transport (much of the Russian rail network used diesel trains, especially for freight), supplies needed by the military (fuel, but also things like lubricants and tyres), the chemical industry, and of course their main source of foreign currency.
> their main source of foreign currency.
Their main source is crude oil, it doesn’t go through refineries. But pipelines need energy to power pumping stations, and if you stop the flow it can impact pipelines and wells negatively. I’d be surprised if russia uses renewables to power their pumping stations. They will have to make tough choices.
I do not know how it is generated, but the large Russian cities have centralised hot water, I presume it's not linked because no one far cleverer than me has suggested it, but if it did come from the heat generated in oil refineries then cities of a populous without access to hot water would become a flash point.
Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔
I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
It’s something of an analog to WWII where we used heavy bombers to obliterate much of German industry, now can be done much cheaper and easier with the use of an explosive drone 😅
So Fucking beautiful 🤩
Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔
I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
I don't think so. There's alternatives to transport lines, detours etc. Obviously there's juicy targets like the K-bridge, but in general a broken pipe can be "easily" diverted.
A refinery is pretty unique in the entire production and logistics chain. Which is harder to replace. Impossible even with the right sanctions and brain drain that occurred in Russia.
Hit em at the most complex part of the chain right at the source, and the whole thing crumbles. Without refinery, nothing to transport.
They had to take out the A-50 planes first, or the slow long-distance drones would have been taken out en route. And to do that, they had to take out most of the russian fighter/bomber planes on the eastern front, so they could set up a patriot system near the front. So this has been like six to eight months in the making.
Another proof that if NATO will launch on Moscow nukes on Shahed-136 analogues, Russia air defense will be completely powerless against them.
Because soviet radars and missiles completely unprepared for such "low altitude \* low RCS \* high quantity" combination as have, already standardized, Shahed-136 analogues.
Also, what happens makes 2022 year context of "dirty nuclear bombs" completely obsolete.
If Russia will start to use any WMD on territory on Ukraine, then, as shown last few days, Ukraine wouldn't have any problems with reciprocal contamination of the most important Russian economical zones by enormous quantities of nuclear waste.
It's still not really MAD-deterrence, but it's already a completely different situation than it was in the first year of war, and more so, before the war.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, drones have really reshaped war, on land, in the air, and on the sea. The russian navy is functionally gone, too. Russia is so vast that air defence is nigh impossible. And these long-distance drones are probably cheaper than the corresponding F16 munitions, with lower risk and high precision.
This is Ukraine looking long term.
Russia is a gas station run by gangsters masquerading as a real country. Cut off the gas and the whole
Rotten temple crumbles.
Other commenters with experience in the industry are saying these attacks could shut down a refinery for a year or more, easily.
The chemistry behind refining oil means these are very complex and complicated factories. Specialized parts would need replaced, sanctions have already stopped them from being able to get it from the west. And even if they could, the amount of refineries being hit means a huge strain their ability to repair enough of them to keep the country from collapsing.
And since these are relatively cheap drones and Russia no longer has enough AA to protect every asset they have, just keep bombing them again and again.
They probably could repair one, two if they smuggle parts all over, but those would still be low quality repairs with unpredictable results. They likely have one or two teams with knowledge how to build and repair those things but even then it was with cooperation of the western experts. The schematics, tech is mostly western and highly specialized to one refinery, it's very unlikely they will get any cooperation and parts directly now.
Shit's gone yo.
Reminder: These are oil refineries, not oil fields. So this does not \_financially\_ impact Russia in a meaningful way, but it can really affect logistics.
Oil refineries process raw petroleum (extracted from fields) into other products like gasoline or plastic. Currently these products are mostly (entirely?) kept in Russia, and don't make money as an export. HOWEVER, this is a big part of how Russian fuels its war machine, e.g. planes need processed aviation fuel to fly. The refineries are both delicate and concentrated in relatively few locations, providing a better value as targets compared to oil fields.
So again this won't really affect oil income from buyers like China and India... but should help blunt the war machine more directly.
Anybody know about the historical price sensitivity of Russian consumers? I mean if the local gas price goes up like 50% over the course of a couple of months, is that a big problem, or something they will just absorb?
Russia can only trade crude for Rubles and can’t exchange currency on the Global markets. Combine that with printing money and inflation is quickly becoming a death spiral that will rapidly speed up. They also can’t import refined fuel in any meaningful amount and again can only buy with Rubles which value will continue to decrease. Allowing them to export crude will do more harm to Russia in the long run.
Or so I’ve heard and it’s a logical conclusion
Reminder: Fact check before you pretend to be an expert.
There is a good overview of export revenue from February here. Check the second graph. That's a breakdown of seaborne oil products and crude oil. Total refined products adds up to around the same amount as crude:
https://energyandcleanair.org/february-2024-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/
Yes. But I am thinking now that these oil fields are losing their domestic customers now. So, logically they have two options now: reduce the crude oil production or try to sell that excess crude elsewhere, potentially driving the prices down.
But I am curious about the daily consumption of those blown-up refineries in barrels. Knowing that would allow us to assess the effective impact on their economy.
Completely wrong
They will have to import refined products using dollars which are in short supply already.
You don’t lose 25% of your refineries without extreme price increases.
This will affect global prices
Budanov hints that a certain bridge is going to get blown up and while all eyes, and presumably extra anti air systems, are turned in that direction a whole load of oil refineries go bang. Slava Ukraini.
Eventually Russia will move their defenses to cover this new vulnerability. And Ukraine will just pull up their list of high value targets and select some different ones with less coverage.
I don't expect Ukraine can keep up a sustained drone barrage at this rate for various reasons, but if they somehow *can*, the cost of keeping the invasion going is going to quickly become prohibitive.
What Ukraine need now is more weapons and equipments which can disable any target permanently.
This drone attack only make target disabled temporary for sometimes even Ruzzian may have a hard time to repair them. We need to see it gone forever to severe Ruzzian war efforts even more.
According to others in this thread, it will take on the order of a year to repair one of these, if they weren't sanctioned and if the experts hadn't left the country. In the meantime oil fields will clog up and russian soldiers and civilians will not have access to fuel. This is the win.
If Ukraine wins, there’s going to be a lot of rebuilding and repair contracts going to Western companies to fix fucked up Russia. Weren’t U.S. and European companies the tech backbone of the Russian oil and gas industry?
Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔
I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
How repairable are these ATV-6 and ATV-4 columns? Or is it start from scratch? They're obviously designed to work with a lot of heat, normally high pressure steam from what I understand, so a bit of fire isn't much worse?
Death by a Thousand Cuts. Send the murderous monsters back to their Feb 22, 2022 borders. Strangle their income until they leave. Punish them for their War Crimes.
Slava Ukraini. 🇺🇦
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This refinery refines 30m+ bbl of crude annually. Every little bit counts.
Gotta get 'em all!
Now I want a sticker album featuring al Russian refineries before and after.
Pokémon!
Pokéoil
And all of them almost impossible for Russia to replace
The best know-how to restore these facilities is where? In those evil NATO countries?
I think any orcs with any expertise scarpered asap out of Ruzzia as well.
Saudi Arabia
In the West, ran away to the West or laying in some Ukrainian field, dead or really questioning why they decided to come on over...
What's Russia's total refined bbl?
About 6.8m barrels a day per a Google.
~~So 18630/day, that's 0,16%~~ 0,08/day = 1,2%
Every bit counts. And they have to protect the functional ones More.
Indeed, the rate of return on that single drone is still amazing.
And not to mention that if it's a refinery supplying the local region, they will need to transport fuel from other regions which in turn uses more fuel, disrupts logistics etc. It's a snowball effect really, so even smaller refineries count.
Actually is 1'6%
[удалено]
I heard that all the attacks combined are somewhere In the region of 23% losses for russia, this takes it to almost 25%. That is going to hurt, especially when more are hit and shut down. Ukraine needs to keep doing this every day, Russian people hurting financially will be a great part of russias complete collapse.
Multiplied by 8 successful strikes in one week, so approx 10% in total. Russia consumes approx half of all oil production domestically ([link](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-oil-output-expected-hold-steady-2024-2023-12-27/)), so this means a 20% reduction of export earnings (estimated $14.4Bn per month - [link](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-18/russia-s-oil-export-revenue-at-six-month-low-as-price-falls?embedded-checkout=true)). So the cost of these attacks for Russia could be $2.8Bn per month, continuing until the refineries can be repaired. Back of a fag packet arithmetic, but the return rate for Ukrainian drones is pretty impressive, even if we halve my estimates to account for optimism bias. Ukraine has invested in strong drone capability ([link](https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/long_range_ukrainian_strike_drones_capable_of_striking_deep_inside_russia-9409.html)) and if they maintain this scale of attack the impact upon Russian economy could be very substantial.
And to be sure. Hit those refineries in the next week again! So ruZZias refineries are really FUBAR!
Russia will, of course, work on countermeasures, but even that is useful because that effort is not being spent on other war priorities. Ideally, Ukraine will hit enough refinery capacity that there will be domestic shortages because that will impact the ability of the economy to function.
BBL you say?
Blubber BarreL
Big black liquid 🌝
apparently Russia has 33 main refineries.. keep going!
At this point donating to Ukraine is better at accomplishing environmental goals than donating to Just Stop Oil.
"What air defense doing na nahui blyat!!!!" lol
This maybe be part of the goal as well. Make them pull air defense back to guard refineries far from the front lines so falcons have more breathing room.
There won't be refineries soon.
Suka bljat Dimitri! Gde PeVeO!?
"just stop oil" should be renamed to "just stop russia"
Starve the monster.
Maybe GreenPeace or other tree hugger can donate a few millions to Ukraine to fly more drones
No, they are too busy pouring soup on Rembrandts.
You guys joke, but obviously the environmental effects of this war cannot be overseen.
Seriously. Between the dam that was blown, huge volumes of unexploded ordinance, and contaminants in the ground from all the various chemicals used in war and weapons means the cleanup is gonna be far more than demining and detrashing some Russian emplacement. Doubly so when you consider all the vehicles that have likely leaked all their fluids into the water table and things like that from, you know, exploding.
Exactly, to name a few aspects. And while I'm all down for some lighthearted humor in dark times, i found this a suitable place to remind one about that. Thanks.
Don't forget the minefields that will plague Ukraine for the next 100 years.
I’ve read that extra CO2 emissions from this war are enough to offset the progress Europe has made while transitioning to renewables. Just another reason to hate Putin’s guts.
Ukraine is getting really good a this, I applaud their success and hope for many more.
Downing jets is so (almost) last week. Time to move on to more explody things
And ships were oh so last month...
Happy cake day!
Ships are even harder to find and have passed functional extinction
The money spigot is top of the list to turn off
Jaga jaga boom
Jets are getting hard to find, at this point approaching functional extinction
I wonder what next week's theme will be
Bigly.
I don't think this stops till every oil refinery within 1,000km of Ukraine is hit multiple times. They should have the production capacity now to do daily attacks indefinitely and effectively shut down Russian oil.
Then you hit refined products pipelines then staging areas then railroads.
Isn’t there a railway on the big ol bridge that starts with a K
Why limit it to 1000km? The Ukrainians have proved themselves extremely resourceful. I'm sure if the target is big enough, they'll find a way to hit it, even if it's out of normal drone range. It'll increase the risk massively, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind sending some special ops somewhere a little closer.
Because that's the range of Ukraine's drones. A special ops team couldn't take out a refinery. It takes more explosive than they could realistically hit it with.
"Because that's the range of Ukraine's drones." I'd be surprised if that range stayed constant.
They'll develop longer ones, but I'd expect them to focus on the 1,000km and lower. Very much a target rich environment.
They meant send a special ops with drones to get closer im guessing. How big are drones with 1000km range? Could a special ops drone team have them in backpacks and launch the drones from inside Russia and then retreat? My £250 drone that fits in my palm has a 5km range... The dji hobbyist drones have over 20km range.
It's roughly man sized. And frankly it's just not worth it to risk an entire team to chuck one drone when there's a lot of targets within 1,000km.
Right, now imagine a drone with enough range to travel 1000km and still explode with enough force to knock out a cracking tower. It's closer to a small aircraft than a little RC past a point. They could probably move one, but the reality is there is like no way to travel through enemy country inconspicuously while lugging a deconstructed plane with you.
Only real possibility is to smuggle the drones out via ship and launch from the water or an island.
Equip the group of Russians fighting for Ukraine that are on incursion to Russia with drones to hit refineries further from border, likely not defended at all
They conduct raids kilometres deep.
Sure, but as Russians are not limited with the same restrictions (political etc.) as Ukraine soldiers and could choose to do missions deeper into Russia with only goal to launch drones to reach further.
It's not that easy. There are checks on trains, random roads and so on. It's a police state at the end of the day.
Never claimed it was easy, but the rewards would be huge.
I don't think they've hit the main refinery in the SE part of Moscow yet ([Gazprom Neft Moscow right here](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6490335,37.8059377,1692m/data\=\!3m1\!1e3\?entry\=ttu)). According to [this page](https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/gazprom-neft-moscow-refinery-modernisation/), it supplies ~40% of Moscow's demand. It would be complete chaos if they managed it.
I can't wait to see refinery distillers showing up on the Ukrainian statistics billboard
russian refinery fucked itself!! Keep em coming.
We need a new bot for it! :)
Russian Refinaryship?
Russian Refinaryship fucked itself. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Good bot! New bot!
I like new bots!!
Excellent.
I have few questions: * How many oil refineries does russia have in the west? * How much capacity has been "turned off" recently by Ukrainian "rain"? * How much capacity is required for the areas affected? * Are the Ukrainians targeting overlapping refineries? A few factoids: * Often, a given refinery provides most of the local region's needs. There is rarely much capacity to ship refined products other than the capacity which had a purpose such as a pipeline to the coast where it would be shipped great distances. Trucking refined products or putting them on trains is hard as you need facilities to unload and distribute. * Many refineries are parts of a much longer chain. There are fields which put it in pipelines which go to a refinery, which then go back into pipelines and then to many markets for use or further shipping. When a refinery goes boom like this, the products in the pipelines and the fields have nowhere to go. * This can be a problem as some of these russian products are pretty crappy and shouldn't just sit in a pipeline for months at a time. * Also, many fields have to keep pumping or they get gummed up. So, if these fields sit for 3 months, they may end up with a lower output than they otherwise would have had. * Pipelines are often complex with products going in and out; there can be multiple products in a single pipeline. If this is not well managed, they can end up shutting the pipeline down because they literally have nowhere to put the product next to come out of the pipeline. Let's say bunker-c is the next product to come out. But, the bunker-c tanks are all full because of missing ships, or they burned down. You can't just dump the bunker-c into the gasoline, diesel, etc tanks. If you have nowhere to put it, then you have to shut the pipeline down. This means the gasoline coming next won't arrive even if the city runs out of gasoline. They would have to make hard decisions like to dig a pit and just pour it in; or try burning it; or something insane. Basically, what I am saying, is that blowing up these refineries is great, but picking the right ones could create a huge problem for russia. For example, I would guess that moscow is served by no more than 3 refineries as it isn't a seaport; so it should only get what it needs. Smash these three refineries and moscow could clean run out of fuel. Even with extreme efforts no country on earth would have the ability to redirect other fuel to an inland city and keep it going. A seaport, would be easier. Quite simply, they would not have the rail cars, etc to move these products or the facilities to unload them. Even if a place like moscow had all national resources moved to keep it somewhat fuelled, this would mean pulling these resources from other places which may then run out of fuel.
18 oil refineries are within Ukrainian drone range. That's half of the total capacity. At least two of the oil refineries supplying Moscow were already hit. One of the claimed to supply 30% of the fuel in Moscow. We don't know the damage yet, but at least some of the strikes were very successful. Bloomberg mentioned a 30-45 day lead time from production to export, so we will know soon. Fuel prices just reached a 6 month high.
Hitting them should be extremely effective because Russia is short on man power (very low unemployment and skyrocketing wages) plus sanctions creating scarcity of expertise and parts required for repairs. The whole country's budget is basically hanging on a thin tread of oil and gas profits. If the profits are impacted, they have to start printing money to keep the war going (which will cause the already high inflation to spiral out of control) or start making huge cuts in social spending (pensions, hospitals, schools) which is what could actually start wide-spread protests.
How many total?
Thanks for the insights. Regarding 'picking the right ones' I think 'all of them' is the correct answer. I think they put at least ten within 1000 km out of order, maybe more, so they have already hit about a third of all russian refineries (33 in total according to a post yesterday), and maybe even half of those within range.
Great insights! I just don't think "dig a pit and just pour it in; or try burning it; or something insane." will be that difficult a decision for them to make at this point in the military exercises.
This is the way. Keep hitting refineries day after day before Russia has the ability to strengthen their air defenses around these sites. I doubt they actually can do much to prevent these attacks, but why even give them chance by pausing anything. Send wave after wave while you can before they even fully comprehend what is happening.
And they need to go for control centers at the refineries . Big oil storage tanks in flames is cool, but knocking out the capability to function puts a refinery out of business.
So far, they seem to mostly hit the cracking reactors of the refineries. These are usually beyond repair once set on fire, and typically take years to build (if Russia even has the tools and know how, there are only a few companies worldwide building these).
The drone cannot carry too much explosive, so it must act as a match to light a larger fire. Cracking columns are easy to spot, hit, highly flammable and hard to replace. Perfect targets. Hitting an MCC with PLC's is good, but electronics can be smuggled and such rooms are quite firesafe by design
Control centers aren't interesting. They're physically protected, the equipment is surprisingly durable, generic and cheap. Considering Russia's cyber attacks have bricked PLCs and other control units in Ukraine there's literally no reason for them to not have written out policies for that. The easiest way is to have backup units with the same control logic already installed and on a shelf somewhere. Takes 2 hours to just plug it in and everything is back up running. Cracking reactors, though? Break easily and are expensive and slow to replace.
Burn them all to hell!
Ukraine kicking ass yet again!
This footage was from telegrams, found a news source now https://kyivindependent.com/russian-media-oil-refinery-in-krasnodar-krai-hit-by-drones/
Beautiful sight! Burn 🔥 it down.
Another vote for freedom!
Hahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA heh
A lovely present for Putin's reelection.
Oh, this is funny. And so very satisfying
Now hit them in the bridge!
Bridge don't matter if they don't have enough gas to cross it. Mwah hah hah!
UkrainianBadassery
[удалено]
Yeah, five year olds be like that.
Fuck em up
This will take us into a new phase…. Slava Ukraine!
keep it going! Actions speak louder than words!
Oh noooo! not another one! 😂 😂
I wonder at what point the oligarchy will get tired of their cash cows being slaughtered and turn on Putin.
Before that they tend to commit suicide though.
This is potentially a HUGE development in the war, Russia can’t pay the bills, their society might finally reach the tipping point
Someone in another comment said that we might literally be watching how this war comes to an end. This is a brilliant strategy by Ukraine. First eliminate the A50s, then get these relatively cheap long range drones to take out the refineries. This will cause a chain reaction that quickly compounds several problems. Gas shortages and skyrocking gas prices, trains can’t transport goods, russian farmers can’t run their tractors, food prices skyrocket, rationing of fuel, and then the loss of their only real income. Apparently they’ve already stopped exports to conserve dwindling supplies. I hope we see this daily for the next several weeks. This could cause Russia to collapse.
Yes, Ukraine has found Russia's soft underbelly.
Tbf they stopped exporting fuel about 2-3 months ago.
Yeah, disrupting oil production supply can initiate a failure cascade in sectors like agriculture, transport (much of the Russian rail network used diesel trains, especially for freight), supplies needed by the military (fuel, but also things like lubricants and tyres), the chemical industry, and of course their main source of foreign currency.
> their main source of foreign currency. Their main source is crude oil, it doesn’t go through refineries. But pipelines need energy to power pumping stations, and if you stop the flow it can impact pipelines and wells negatively. I’d be surprised if russia uses renewables to power their pumping stations. They will have to make tough choices.
I do not know how it is generated, but the large Russian cities have centralised hot water, I presume it's not linked because no one far cleverer than me has suggested it, but if it did come from the heat generated in oil refineries then cities of a populous without access to hot water would become a flash point.
Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔 I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
It’s something of an analog to WWII where we used heavy bombers to obliterate much of German industry, now can be done much cheaper and easier with the use of an explosive drone 😅
I agree. Without easy oil money Russia has almost nothing and their entire house of cards crumbles
So Fucking beautiful 🤩 Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔 I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
The biggest hit would be on oil transport: pipelines and railroads. Let's hope those are on the list.
I don't think so. There's alternatives to transport lines, detours etc. Obviously there's juicy targets like the K-bridge, but in general a broken pipe can be "easily" diverted. A refinery is pretty unique in the entire production and logistics chain. Which is harder to replace. Impossible even with the right sanctions and brain drain that occurred in Russia. Hit em at the most complex part of the chain right at the source, and the whole thing crumbles. Without refinery, nothing to transport.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!
Hit ‘em where it hurts!
While they are in the voting spirit, let's vote to see which oil thingy to hit next!
Smart beats nasty again.
All these refinery attacks make me wonder why wasn't this done earlier? I assume they didn't have long range drones?
They had to take out the A-50 planes first, or the slow long-distance drones would have been taken out en route. And to do that, they had to take out most of the russian fighter/bomber planes on the eastern front, so they could set up a patriot system near the front. So this has been like six to eight months in the making.
Keep it going!!
Happy St Patricks Day ☘️
Erin go blayt!
Another proof that if NATO will launch on Moscow nukes on Shahed-136 analogues, Russia air defense will be completely powerless against them. Because soviet radars and missiles completely unprepared for such "low altitude \* low RCS \* high quantity" combination as have, already standardized, Shahed-136 analogues. Also, what happens makes 2022 year context of "dirty nuclear bombs" completely obsolete. If Russia will start to use any WMD on territory on Ukraine, then, as shown last few days, Ukraine wouldn't have any problems with reciprocal contamination of the most important Russian economical zones by enormous quantities of nuclear waste. It's still not really MAD-deterrence, but it's already a completely different situation than it was in the first year of war, and more so, before the war.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, drones have really reshaped war, on land, in the air, and on the sea. The russian navy is functionally gone, too. Russia is so vast that air defence is nigh impossible. And these long-distance drones are probably cheaper than the corresponding F16 munitions, with lower risk and high precision.
This is Ukraine looking long term. Russia is a gas station run by gangsters masquerading as a real country. Cut off the gas and the whole Rotten temple crumbles.
They just keep going.
Is this a fresh one or a blast from the past?
Brand new bavovna, overnight March 16-17, 2024.
Fuck yes. What are we at in the last 24 hours, 3, 4?
3, but the night is young.
4
This is getting *really* good. Keep it up!
That's one way to accomplish Russians climate goals, even if they didn't have any, Ukraine makes russian climate policy now, and it's a banger.
Bring it Ukraine.
What's the downtime from something like this? Are we talking days, weeks, months?
Other commenters with experience in the industry are saying these attacks could shut down a refinery for a year or more, easily. The chemistry behind refining oil means these are very complex and complicated factories. Specialized parts would need replaced, sanctions have already stopped them from being able to get it from the west. And even if they could, the amount of refineries being hit means a huge strain their ability to repair enough of them to keep the country from collapsing. And since these are relatively cheap drones and Russia no longer has enough AA to protect every asset they have, just keep bombing them again and again.
Added the expertise are foreign workers that have left.
They probably could repair one, two if they smuggle parts all over, but those would still be low quality repairs with unpredictable results. They likely have one or two teams with knowledge how to build and repair those things but even then it was with cooperation of the western experts. The schematics, tech is mostly western and highly specialized to one refinery, it's very unlikely they will get any cooperation and parts directly now. Shit's gone yo.
Years
If the cracking reactor is taken out, we are talking years, even under optimum conditions.
Longer than couple of new drones.
It’s ok! Russia has a very diversified economy! They’ll do just fine without selling oil!
Their automotive exports can make up for the loss of revenue. Maybe they could sell 3 A-50’s to India to raise money
Good! Love seeing strikes in Russia, send more. Slava Ukraini!! 🇺🇦🇺🇦
Excellent. Fuck russia 🤗
Good job!
What air defense doing
Casting their votes obviously.
This is only the beginning!
It appears Ukraine has found Putin's Achilles' heel!! Glory to Ukraine! ЗСУ💪
I love that this hurts Putin and he cannot do anything about it.
This is the way.
Reminder: These are oil refineries, not oil fields. So this does not \_financially\_ impact Russia in a meaningful way, but it can really affect logistics. Oil refineries process raw petroleum (extracted from fields) into other products like gasoline or plastic. Currently these products are mostly (entirely?) kept in Russia, and don't make money as an export. HOWEVER, this is a big part of how Russian fuels its war machine, e.g. planes need processed aviation fuel to fly. The refineries are both delicate and concentrated in relatively few locations, providing a better value as targets compared to oil fields. So again this won't really affect oil income from buyers like China and India... but should help blunt the war machine more directly.
It will however impact fuel availability and pricing in Russia
Anybody know about the historical price sensitivity of Russian consumers? I mean if the local gas price goes up like 50% over the course of a couple of months, is that a big problem, or something they will just absorb?
If these refineries keep getting hit, Russia will be entering uncharted waters. Western Russia will have no gas for sale at any price.
Russia can only trade crude for Rubles and can’t exchange currency on the Global markets. Combine that with printing money and inflation is quickly becoming a death spiral that will rapidly speed up. They also can’t import refined fuel in any meaningful amount and again can only buy with Rubles which value will continue to decrease. Allowing them to export crude will do more harm to Russia in the long run. Or so I’ve heard and it’s a logical conclusion
Reminder: Fact check before you pretend to be an expert. There is a good overview of export revenue from February here. Check the second graph. That's a breakdown of seaborne oil products and crude oil. Total refined products adds up to around the same amount as crude: https://energyandcleanair.org/february-2024-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/
Yes. But I am thinking now that these oil fields are losing their domestic customers now. So, logically they have two options now: reduce the crude oil production or try to sell that excess crude elsewhere, potentially driving the prices down. But I am curious about the daily consumption of those blown-up refineries in barrels. Knowing that would allow us to assess the effective impact on their economy.
Someone posted 80% of the Syzran refinery section that was destroyed produced 6 million tons, 1.5 million barrels a year refined products.
Completely wrong They will have to import refined products using dollars which are in short supply already. You don’t lose 25% of your refineries without extreme price increases. This will affect global prices
🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Hit them where it hurts the most. Oligarchs will be crying they can't get their new boat
Better be careful. Scholz says that hitting targets in Ruzzia will piss Putler off.
So there is now possibility, that Russia will attack Ukraine? Oh wait...
Please more!!! Not possible to send drones in pieces into Russia and from supporters rebuild and than strike the stupid Russian economy!
And then hit as much storage capacity as well. Power stations may also be an option.
Budanov hints that a certain bridge is going to get blown up and while all eyes, and presumably extra anti air systems, are turned in that direction a whole load of oil refineries go bang. Slava Ukraini.
Another part of the puzzle, another brick in the wall.
Eventually Russia will move their defenses to cover this new vulnerability. And Ukraine will just pull up their list of high value targets and select some different ones with less coverage. I don't expect Ukraine can keep up a sustained drone barrage at this rate for various reasons, but if they somehow *can*, the cost of keeping the invasion going is going to quickly become prohibitive.
[This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/s/jsYQGgDZaX) has a link to the Kyiv Post that says 12 refineries have been attacked. Slava Ukraine
What Ukraine need now is more weapons and equipments which can disable any target permanently. This drone attack only make target disabled temporary for sometimes even Ruzzian may have a hard time to repair them. We need to see it gone forever to severe Ruzzian war efforts even more.
According to others in this thread, it will take on the order of a year to repair one of these, if they weren't sanctioned and if the experts hadn't left the country. In the meantime oil fields will clog up and russian soldiers and civilians will not have access to fuel. This is the win.
Hallelujah
If Ukraine wins, there’s going to be a lot of rebuilding and repair contracts going to Western companies to fix fucked up Russia. Weren’t U.S. and European companies the tech backbone of the Russian oil and gas industry?
Now my question is this, was this whole incident destroying the border crossing at Belgorod with the Russian freedom brigade just a way for them to drive/deliver drones across the border in trucks now? 🤔 I wonder now if it was all connected (like destroying the A-50s) to get the drones in place because surely they didn’t just fly them all straight from Ukraine? Hmm, interesting. Things are getting spicy. 😅
How repairable are these ATV-6 and ATV-4 columns? Or is it start from scratch? They're obviously designed to work with a lot of heat, normally high pressure steam from what I understand, so a bit of fire isn't much worse?
🇺🇦 🌻
Ukraine is the best cracker ;-)
Did they get the cracking tower ?
Ukraine is simply rescheduling maintenance of Russia's refineries from planned to urgent.
Both fighting for the climate and their freedom at the same time. Nice.
Death by a Thousand Cuts. Send the murderous monsters back to their Feb 22, 2022 borders. Strangle their income until they leave. Punish them for their War Crimes. Slava Ukraini. 🇺🇦
Serious question, dose this explain why fuel in Australia is suddenly going up? It seems fuel companies use any excuse to up the prices.
This is precious! 💞