26th September 2026
We have become accustomed to seeing reports of another Russian oil refinery being attacked by Ukrainian drones.
A refinery is hit. Fires are reported. Production is stopped or reduced. A few days later there is another attack somewhere else.
It can therefore be tempting to assume that the damage is temporary and that the refinery will soon be back to normal.
The reality is rather different.
The International Energy Agency says some refinery damage can be repaired in a week or two, but serious damage to more complex equipment can take six to eight months to repair.
And that distinction matters because Russia's refining industry is now being attacked frequently enough that repairs are increasingly taking place while the next attack is already approaching.
Russia has a huge refining industry
Russia has around 32 major oil refineries, with approximately 6.5 million barrels a day of installed refining capacity.
It has historically been one of the world's biggest producers of refined petroleum products.
But the amount of oil actually being processed has fallen sharply.
The IEA says Russian refinery throughput fell to 3.8 million barrels a day in June 2026, the lowest level for more than 20 years and about 30% below a year earlier.
Diesel production was estimated to be almost 30% lower than in 2025, while gasoline production was around 20% lower.
Those figures are more revealing than the number of drone attacks.
Not all refinery equipment is equal
A refinery is not simply a giant machine that either works or doesn't work.
It contains numerous processing units, each performing a different job.
The first stage is normally crude distillation, where crude oil is separated into different fractions.
But other units then process those products further to produce things such as diesel, petrol and aviation fuel.
The IEA says relatively minor damage to a crude-distillation unit can sometimes be repaired within one or two weeks.
But damage to more sophisticated equipment such as catalytic crackers, hydrocrackers, reformers and hydrotreaters can take six to eight months to repair.
This is important because Ukraine increasingly appears to be targeting these secondary processing units.
The objective is not necessarily to destroy an entire refinery.
Disabling one particularly important piece of equipment can dramatically reduce the amount of useful fuel that the refinery can produce.
The Moscow refinery illustrates the problem
The 250,000-barrel-a-day Moscow refinery was severely damaged in an attack in June.
The IEA says it is reported to be offline until early 2027.
So this is not a matter of switching the refinery back on once the fire brigade has left.
Some damage requires major engineering work and specialist equipment.
Western sanctions can also make obtaining certain replacement equipment more difficult.
And then there are repeated attacks
Perhaps the most important part of the IEA assessment is the cumulative effect.
Some Russian refineries have now been attacked as many as 15 times since 2022.
During the first eight months of 2026, a Russian refinery was hit on average once every three days.
By late August, the IEA said only five major Russian refineries remained untouched by Ukrainian drones. Those five were in eastern Siberia or the Russian Far East, thousands of kilometres from Ukraine.
That creates a very different problem from one isolated attack.
Imagine a refinery with several major processing units.
One is damaged and takes six months to repair.
Another is damaged three weeks later.
A third is already undergoing routine maintenance.
The refinery may still technically be operating, but its overall capacity can be substantially reduced.
Russia is trying to keep the system going
Russia has responded by delaying scheduled maintenance, bringing mothballed equipment back into operation and accelerating repairs.
It has also restricted exports.
Gasoline exports were banned earlier in the year, followed by a ban on jet-fuel exports and, in July, a diesel-export ban.
The diesel restriction has subsequently been extended as pressure on domestic supplies continued.
Russia has even temporarily relaxed some fuel-quality requirements, allowing older fuel standards to be used.
It has also imported petrol from countries including Morocco, South Korea, India and Turkey.
That is a striking development for one of the world's major oil-producing countries.
Russia has plenty of crude oil.
The problem is increasingly turning that crude into the particular fuels it needs.
That is the difference between oil and fuel
This distinction is often lost in discussions about energy.
Russia can still produce enormous quantities of crude oil.
But a barrel of crude oil isn't much use to a lorry driver until a refinery has processed it into diesel.
That is why attacks on refineries can have an effect far beyond the amount of crude oil Russia produces.
And diesel is particularly important because it powers trucks, agricultural machinery, construction equipment, ships and many industrial operations.
The effect is already reaching the global market
The Russian problem is also arriving at a particularly bad time for the rest of the world.
The IEA says global seaborne diesel and gasoil exports averaged 4.7 million barrels a day during the first eight months of 2026, down 10% from a year earlier.
Russian and Middle Eastern diesel exports have fallen particularly sharply.
In August, combined Middle Eastern and Russian diesel exports were around 75% below the same month a year earlier, according to the IEA.
Other countries have increased exports, particularly the United States and some Asian producers.
But they have not been able to replace all of the missing supplies.
And global refineries are already operating under considerable pressure.
This is why diesel prices matter
The world therefore has several problems occurring simultaneously.
Russian refineries are being damaged.
Middle Eastern oil and fuel exports have been disrupted.
Shipping routes have been affected.
Global inventories have fallen.
And refineries elsewhere have limited spare capacity to make up the difference.
The IEA says diesel refining margins in the US Gulf Coast and Northwest Europe rose above $100 a barrel in September, an indication of just how tight the market has become.
This helps explain why diesel prices have been behaving very differently from the price of crude oil.
The problem is not simply a shortage of oil.
It is increasingly a shortage of refining capacity and refined products.
What happens if the attacks continue?
This is where the situation becomes particularly difficult to predict.
Russia can repair damaged equipment.
But if attacks continue at roughly the present rate, the repair programme becomes a moving target.
The IEA says repeated cycles of damage and repair could reduce refinery reliability and that the work required to restore damaged units is increasing.
It has consequently reduced its forecast for Russian refinery throughput to an average of about 4 million barrels a day for the rest of 2026 and for 2027.
That suggests the problem is not expected simply to disappear when the latest fire is extinguished.
And there is a Caithness connection
It may seem strange to connect a damaged refinery in Russia with the price of diesel in Wick.
But oil is traded in an international market.
If a major source of refined diesel disappears, buyers have to find alternative supplies.
Those alternatives may involve longer shipping routes, higher freight costs and competition with other countries for available cargoes.
The cost eventually works its way through the transport system.
For Caithness, where almost everything travels considerable distances by road, that matters.
Diesel affects haulage.
Haulage affects supermarkets.
It affects farmers buying fuel and transporting produce.
It affects builders moving materials.
It affects deliveries to businesses and households.
It affects the cost of getting goods to some of the most remote communities in Britain.
The question we should therefore be asking
Rather than asking simply:
"How many Russian refineries were attacked this week?"
perhaps the more important question is:
"How much Russian refining capacity is still out of action, how much is operating below normal capacity, and how quickly can the damaged equipment actually be repaired?"
The answer is becoming increasingly important to the rest of the world.
Some refinery units can apparently be repaired within weeks.
Others can take many months.
And when the same facilities are repeatedly attacked, the distinction between a temporary interruption and a long-term loss of capacity becomes increasingly blurred.
The flames may disappear from the television pictures within hours.
The shortage of diesel they help create can last considerably longer.
And for drivers filling up in Caithness, that may be the part of the story that matters most.