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The fuel crisis has been felt to varying degrees across Russia since May, when Ukraine stepped up attacks on refineries in an effort to undermine Russia’s ability to sustain the war, Reuters said.
Industry sources said overall gasoline output in Russia fell in early July to about 65 percent of average seasonal consumption, after months in which supply lagged demand. A mid-June strike on the Moscow refinery triggered shortages and long lines at gas stations, but supplies in the capital and the wider Moscow region had stabilized by mid-July, regional fuel traders and Reuters correspondents said.
“The Moscow region is home to 22 million people, or more than one-sixth of country's total population,” the report noted.
“Since Soviet times, authorities have prioritized supplies of various goods to the capital.”
The worst shortages are in Russian-occupied Crimea, where authorities have suspended children’s tourism, introduced fuel rationing, and enforced restrictions on public life, including shortened business hours for shops and cafes.
To make up for lost gasoline output from damaged refineries, supplies of motor gasoline produced in the Urals and Siberia, and imports from Belarus, have been redirected to Moscow Oblast, traders said. One trader said the Achinsk refinery in Krasnoyarsk Krai in Siberia is supplying fuel specifically to Moscow. He estimated the additional volumes headed to the capital at several hundred thousand metric tons.
Moscow Oblast consumes about 6 million tons of gasoline a year. To help meet that demand, Russia has also begun importing fuel from India.
Read also: Fuel shortages expose cracks in Putin’s bargain with the Russian public
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Section: Nation
Author: Eric Malinowski
