22nd August 2026
Russia is one of the world's great oil-producing nations. It has enormous reserves, produces vast quantities of crude and has an energy industry that has long been central to its economy. So reports of petrol and diesel shortages across parts of Russia might seem surprising.
How can a country with so much oil find itself short of fuel?
The answer is an important lesson for Britain and, perhaps particularly, for places such as Caithness.
It is a reminder that having oil underground is one thing. Turning that oil into petrol and diesel, and then getting the finished fuel to the people who need it, is something altogether different.
Recent reports indicate that fuel shortages have returned to a number of Russian regions, with restrictions appearing at filling stations and pressure spreading beyond isolated areas. The problem has been linked to Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, strong seasonal demand and the enormous distances involved in moving fuel around the country.
The story is therefore not that Russia is running out of oil.
It is that Russia is experiencing increasing difficulty turning enough of its oil into the finished fuels its economy requires.
That distinction matters enormously.
Oil in the ground isn't petrol in the tank
Crude oil is a raw material.
Before it can be used by most cars, lorries, tractors, fishing vessels and aircraft, it has to be processed in a refinery. A refinery separates and converts crude oil into different products, including petrol, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products.
If a refinery is damaged or forced to stop operating, the crude oil does not disappear.
It simply cannot be converted into the products required at the same rate.
That is why Russia can simultaneously have enormous quantities of crude oil available and shortages of petrol or diesel.
It is rather like having a warehouse full of wheat but insufficient mills to turn the wheat into flour. The raw material exists, but that does not mean the finished product is readily available.
And this is precisely why the attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have become strategically important.
Ukraine does not necessarily need to prevent Russia from pumping oil. If it can repeatedly disrupt the country's refining capacity, it can create a different kind of problem.
Russia can have the oil but struggle to produce enough fuel.
Russia's size can become a weakness
There is another factor that is easy to overlook.
Russia is enormous.
Normally that is regarded as one of the country's great strategic advantages. It possesses vast natural resources spread across a huge territory, with extensive railways, pipelines and other transport infrastructure.
But geography can work against it when there is a shortage.
A refinery in western Russia cannot necessarily compensate quickly for a refinery that has been taken offline hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Petrol and diesel have to be transported, often over enormous distances.
That takes time, transport capacity and money.
It means that a shortage of refining capacity in one part of Russia cannot necessarily be solved simply by pointing to the existence of surplus fuel somewhere else.
The same principle applies to Britain, although on a much smaller geographical scale.
If a refinery or fuel terminal goes offline, having crude oil available somewhere in the world does not immediately put petrol into the filling station forecourt in Wick or Thurso.
There are several stages between the oil field and the fuel pump.
Ukraine has identified the weak point
The increasing attacks on Russian refineries are therefore about more than simply destroying physical infrastructure.
They are aimed at disrupting an essential part of the Russian economy.
The effect is potentially twofold.
Russia needs refined fuel for its own economy and military operations. At the same time, refined petroleum products are important exports.
If Russia loses refining capacity, it has to choose where its remaining fuel goes.
Domestic motorists, agriculture, industry and the military all need supplies.
The Government has consequently taken measures to protect the domestic market, including restrictions on fuel exports. Russia has also extended its petrol export ban through the end of 2026.
That produces another interesting consequence.
Russia is one of the world's major energy exporters, yet it has been forced to take steps to keep fuel inside the country.
And reports that Russia has imported petrol from overseas underline the distinction between crude production and refining capacity.
A country can be an enormous oil producer and still need to buy petrol.
There is no contradiction.
Why should Britain care?
At first sight, Russia's petrol shortage might appear to be a problem for Russian motorists.
But energy markets do not work in national compartments.
Petroleum products are traded internationally.
If Russia loses refining capacity, it needs to retain more of its own production for domestic use.
That reduces the amount of refined product available to international buyers.
Those buyers then have to find alternative supplies.
And that means competing with other countries for diesel, petrol and aviation fuel.
Prices can rise even though the actual shortage is occurring thousands of miles away.
This is particularly important for diesel.
The International Energy Agency has warned that disruption affecting Russia and the Middle East has contributed to a substantial reduction in international diesel exports. Its latest market assessment says diesel exports from Russia, the Middle East and Asia were around 1.3 million barrels a day lower year-on-year, equivalent to roughly 20% of global seaborne diesel trade.
That is a very large hole to fill.
And Russia is not the only problem.
The world is simultaneously dealing with disruption to Middle Eastern oil and refining infrastructure.
The result is a global refining market under pressure.
This is where things become particularly interesting
We tend to think of petrol and diesel prices as following the price of crude oil.
That is broadly true over the longer term, but it is not the whole story.
The price of crude oil represents the cost of the raw material.
The price paid for petrol or diesel also reflects the cost and availability of refining capacity, transport, storage and distribution.
If there is plenty of crude but insufficient refinery capacity, the price of the finished product can rise.
That is increasingly what the world appears to be experiencing.
The IEA has reported a significant fall in global refinery throughput, with refining capacity affected by disruptions and maintenance at a time when demand for finished fuels remains substantial.
This produces the possibility of a situation that seems contradictory to the average motorist.
Crude oil prices could fall while diesel prices remain stubbornly high.
That is not necessarily evidence that something is wrong with the market.
It can be evidence that the bottleneck has moved.
Instead of the shortage being in crude oil, the shortage is in the ability to turn crude into the fuels people actually use.
Why diesel matters more than many people realise
For Britain, diesel is particularly important.
It is not simply the fuel used by private motorists.
Diesel powers much of Britain's road freight industry.
It is used by tractors and agricultural machinery.
It is important to construction.
It is used by commercial vehicles, fishing vessels and many other businesses.
And when diesel becomes more expensive, the consequences spread well beyond the filling station.
A haulage company facing higher diesel costs eventually has to recover at least some of that cost.
A farmer facing higher fuel costs has higher production costs.
A fishing business facing higher fuel bills has another cost that has to be absorbed or passed on.
A food distributor paying more to move goods has higher operating costs.
Eventually those costs can appear in supermarket prices and household bills.
This is why fuel prices can have an economic effect far greater than their percentage share of a household's spending might suggest.
Fuel is an input into almost everything.
And then there is Caithness
For Caithness, the issue is particularly relevant because geography magnifies the importance of transport.
In a large city, somebody may be able to walk to a shop, take a bus or use a train.
That is much less practical across large parts of rural Caithness.
Businesses need vehicles.
Customers often need cars.
Goods have to travel considerable distances.
Food arrives by road.
Building materials arrive by road.
Tradespeople travel between jobs.
Farmers use fuel to operate machinery.
Fishing businesses depend heavily on fuel.
And almost everything that eventually reaches a Caithness household has travelled through a transport network that ultimately depends heavily on petroleum products.
That means a rise in diesel prices does not have to be enormous before people notice it.
The impact can arrive indirectly.
A higher fuel bill for a delivery company can become a higher delivery charge.
Higher costs for a contractor can become a higher quotation.
Higher agricultural costs can eventually feed into food prices.
Higher fishing costs can affect the economics of landing and processing fish.
For rural Scotland, transport is not an optional extra.
It is part of the cost of living.
It also matters for heating
There is another reason fuel markets deserve attention in northern Scotland.
Heating oil remains important in areas without access to the gas network.
Although heating oil is not the same product as road diesel, it is part of the wider petroleum-products market.
The economics of refining, transportation and international supply therefore matter to households that rely on liquid fuels for heating as well as those buying petrol and diesel for vehicles.
This is why an energy shock can feel different in Caithness from the way it feels in a densely populated urban area.
The rural household can be exposed to several transport and energy costs simultaneously.
But is Britain going to run out of fuel?
There is no evidence from the current situation that Britain is heading towards empty filling stations.
That is an important distinction.
The issue at present is primarily one of price and supply pressure, rather than an immediate prospect of Britain running out of petrol and diesel.
Britain has access to international markets and multiple sources of supply.
But international markets are precisely why developments in Russia can matter.
If Russia keeps more refined fuel at home, another producer has to supply the international market.
If Middle Eastern refining capacity is also disrupted, another producer has to fill that gap as well.
If European stocks are low, buyers become more aggressive.
And when buyers compete for limited supplies, prices rise.
The uncomfortable possibility
This leaves Britain with a potentially awkward situation as we move towards the winter months.
We could see crude oil prices behaving relatively calmly while refined fuel prices remain under pressure.
That would be particularly painful because motorists looking at the crude oil price might reasonably ask why the price at the filling station has not fallen accordingly.
The answer would be that crude is only one part of the equation.
The world needs refineries.
It needs ships.
It needs storage facilities.
It needs pipelines and terminals.
It needs functioning infrastructure.
And it needs enough spare capacity to cope when something goes wrong.
The Russian experience is demonstrating what happens when one of those components becomes a bottleneck.
Russia's problem is therefore a warning
It would be wrong to interpret the Russian shortages as evidence that Russia is running out of oil.
It isn't.
Russia remains an enormous oil producer with vast resources.
The significance lies elsewhere.
Its experience demonstrates that natural resources do not automatically translate into energy security.
You need the infrastructure and industrial capacity to process those resources.
You need transportation networks to move the finished products.
And you need enough spare capacity to withstand disruption.
That is true in Russia and it is true in Britain.
And it is particularly important in places such as Caithness, where distance means that the cost of moving almost everything is already built into the economy.
The lesson from Russia is therefore much bigger than the immediate question of whether Russian motorists can find petrol.
In the modern energy system, the critical resource is not simply oil. It is the entire chain that turns oil into something useful and gets it to where it is needed.
Russia has discovered that even a country sitting on enormous quantities of oil can become vulnerable when that chain is disrupted.
Britain should take note.
And Caithness perhaps has even more reason to do so.
Because when fuel prices rise, the effect here is not simply felt at the filling station.
It travels down every road in the county — and eventually into the price of almost everything we buy.