Ukraine Drone Strikes Taking a Toll on Russian Refining Capacity

Written by Jesse Broehl for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Ukraine has ramped up its drone attack capability and prioritized its attacks against Russian oil and gas infrastructure since that is Russia's primary source of revenue for its war effort and a key economic driver for its overall economy. The attacks are having the intended effect of shutting down Russian refining capacity, reducing production of gasoline and other fuels and products for both domestic and international supply.

Crude distillation unplanned outages caused by drone attacks averaged 757,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) in August and 1.452 million BBL/d in September, an increase from previous levels, according to IIR Energy.

Click on the image at right for a chart showing unplanned Russian crude distillate unit (CDU) outages due to drone attacks.

IIR Energy closely tracks both planned and unplanned outages at Russian refineries (among all global refineries). February 2024 was the first unplanned outage when drone attacks damaged two CDUs at the Volgograd Refinery. Shortly thereafter, the Ryazan Refinery was hit; multiple refinery units were taken offline with extensive damage to a train loading facility, storage tank farm and hydrotreater units.

Since then, the frequency of drone attacks taking CDU capacity offline has steadily increased. A volley of attacks between January 24 and April 13 took an average of 402,000 BBL/d offline with a peak of 800,000 BBL/d offline from drone attacks in early February. Attacks subsided through late spring and early summer, and then rapidly ramped up in August, with 757,000 BBL/d offline on average, reaching nearly 1.6 million BBL/d of unplanned offline capacity in mid-September tied to drone attacks.

Click on the image at right for an IIR map of confirmed Russian refineries with outages due to drone strikes.


Advancing Drone Technology Accelerating Attacks on Refineries
The timing of the increased attacks on refineries, oil depots and other energy assets coincides with Ukraine deploying an upgraded version of its Liutyi strike drones this summer. Ukrainian engineers have upgraded this platform to have a range exceeding 1,200 miles while carrying a substantial payload, and effective anti-jamming technology that allows it to strike deep into Russian territory with a high rate of success, according to Forbes.

The result has been substantial damage to Russian refineries and impactful reductions of processing capacity. Recent drone attacks on Russian refineries include:

• LUKOIL-Volgogradneftepererabotka continues with the unplanned shutdown of its 356,000-BBL/d Volgograd Refinery. Multiple drone attacks on August 13 and August 14 caused a massive fire and damage to several units. The refinery is provisionally expected to restart operations in mid-October 2025.
• Ilskiy Refinery OOO continues with the unplanned shutdown at its 130,800-BBL/d Ilskiy Refinery, Russia. The entire refinery was shut down on September 7, after a drone attack that caused a fire and an explosion at the 72,000-BBL/d CDU. The refinery is provisionally scheduled to resume operations in mid-October.
• Bashneft ANK OAO continues an unplanned stoppage of the CDUs and vacuum distillation units (VDUs) after the drone attack on September 13 at its 142,000-BBL/d Novoil-Ufa refinery. The units are provisionally planned to resume operations in mid-October 2025.
• SAFMAR was forced to shut down the 68,800-BBL/d CDU at its 130,300-BBL/d Afipskiy Refinery after it was attacked by drones on September 26. Provisionally, the unit is set to resume operations in late October. Meanwhile, SAFMAR restarted the 61,500-BBL/d CDU on September 17, which was offline due to a drone attack on August 28.
• Ryazan NPK CJSC continues an unplanned shutdown of its entire 375,900-BBL/d Ryazan refinery. The refinery was attacked by drones on multiple occasions, first on August 2, and then on September 5. The refinery is provisionally planned to resume operations in mid-October.
• Gazprom Pererabotka OOO was forced to shut down its entire Astrakhan Refinery after a drone attack on September 22. Provisionally the refinery is set to resume operations in early November.

Drone Attacks Responsible for Gasoline Shortages
As a result, gasoline shortages have become common, particularly in the eastern regions of Russian where refineries and infrastructure have been targeted. Many retail customer gasoline stations have run out, prices have spiked over 50% in some regions, and rationing has been implemented, according to Reuters and other news outlets. Russian crude oil production is less impacted, and exports may in fact increase since less can be processed by the damaged domestic plants, although sanctions may limit any excess supplies.

Refineries are vulnerable to drone attacks since they are large plants that pose obvious targets to aerial attacks, and once damaged, require specialized repair expertise, hardware and are time consuming to rebuild.

Industrial Info will continue to track this ongoing situation and report individual Russian refinery outages, planned or unplanned, and related impacted units, offline capacity, and other details.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).