Rosneft starts to find the refinery repair bill unsustainable

Bloomberg's damage assessment shows the Ryazan refinery has been shut for more than half the time since the first strike in May 2026, and ran well below capacity when it did operate. Syzran, which processes about 9 million tonnes of crude a year, was either fully stopped or running at under a third of capacity for most of the past 6 months. Tuapse, the Black Sea export hub, has been closed since April. By Bloomberg's count, 5 of the 15 confirmed refinery strikes in September hit Rosneft plants supplying European Russia.

The company's net profit fell about 20% in the first half of 2026 to 200 billion roubles ($2.4 billion), while its net debt-to-earnings ratio rose to 1.8 times over the same period, the highest in more than five years. According to the sources, some plants are stretching repairs that would take a few days over several weeks to cut costs, and sanctions are restricting access to critical spare parts. Rosneft says no filling station has closed and that consumers are receiving fuel in full at stable prices. The Bloomberg figures could not be independently verified.

Pressure is also building on the sanctions front. On 21 October the EU's diplomatic service presented ambassadors with a draft of 117 listings; 31 target Russia's oil processing, refining and export capacity, 2 target LNG processing companies and 52 target banks and financial institutions. The draft responds to US President Trump's acceptance of Russian diesel imports about two weeks earlier. According to the Kyiv Independent, Ukraine has carried out at least 114 strikes on Russian refineries in 2026, and confirmed hits between January and October are more than double the 2025 total.