The Lack of Russian Oil Refining Resources

Many years ago in 82^nd my BC and I were looking at the OSINT bulletin board I maintained in the Bn Headquarters hall. I remarked that my raising had been in one of the larger oilfields in Oklahoma and that would be a good FTX AO (the area of the ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ took place). He said the OPEC nations would be extremely upset if it was known the U.S. was doing an exercise of any kind in an oil, or words to that effect.

Oil fields as we saw in Desert Storm are very vulnerable to attack or more aptly sabotage (also see the John Wayne movie “The Hell Fighters” based on late Red Adair who pioneered the techniques still in use).

In oil field production using Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a example. Their fields have subterranean oil fields which are under natural pressure (which in some cases can cause the dangerous geyser effect), so production is easier to control than actual pumping the oil. Saudi Arabia also has larger oil reserves on the western side of Saudi Arabia that are not pressurized.

The real center of gravity for oil production though is the refineries. In modern refineries they are automated processes that require constant monitoring. These automated processes control the purifying and separating crude oil into different product types. Different types of crude oil also require different processing. You may have heard the term ’Sweet Crude’ which is less than .5% sulfur which is a lighter type of oil and easier to refine. Back in the oil boom days of the early 20th Century refineries were manual affairs and could be dangerous.

The modern refineries are much safer until there is an accident, then it isn’t. The cause could be carelessness, more maintenance, or piping or control valves that have flaws and fail under production pressure.

The following illustration is a simple diagram of what a basic refinery looks like. As you can see there are a lot of critical nodes that can be attacked. There is one though that is more crucial.

The below illustration is at the very start of the refinement process which is where the different types of petroleum products are broken out. A number of these distillation towers were destroyed in at least three different refineries in the last three or four days. There is a plethora of YouTube videos about this, one of which shows a Ukrainian drone striking one of these towers.

The Barvona refinery is on fire again after dozens of Ukraine drones stuck targets in Russia proper.  Most of the drones were shot down, as compared to losses depicted in ‘Masters of the Air’, the drone were on a one way trip anyway.  Those that did get through took out not just the tower but other components of the refinery as well.

The Rosneft refinery complex had four of these distillation towers. Emphasis on ‘had’, there appear to only be two remaining because of drone strikes or the usual tragic Russian industrial accident.  In addition, the refinery in Ryazan has lost at least one distillation tower along with other components.

Bear in mind that Russia’s OSHA is comprised only of four people. The agency employs primarily veterans of The Great Patriotic War or surviving family members with an average of 80 or greater.

These attacks have taken out 3 – 5 distillation towers in the last 72 hours and preceding weeks. The time to clear debris and reconstruct these towers is normally 12 to 18 months and cost well over $1 Billion each. That is due to the high-quality level of production that all components require and the automation that is built in.Then it gets complicated as some components (computers) and specialized valves are no longer available to Russia because of sanctions. 

I do have a question out to some of my surviving High School friends that did work in China for western oil companies in the past. If China has the means to manufacture the critical components for a refinery, they could be a source of parts. Maybe. 

This could really be a profit center for China as they try to make up production loss for Russia and supply replacement parts to rebuild refineries. Will Mad Vlad bend the knee and negotiate with China from a weak position is another matter.

In the background of all of this is the six-month export ban on all petroleum products that Russia began on the 1^st of March. Not only is the Russian Army in need of petrol products as the spring and summer ‘war season’ approaches, the Russian magnificently efficient collectivized farm system will also need fuel for planting, harvesting, and to sell on the black market. There is a direct correlation to how well Russians harvests are to productivity in Russian. (Somewhere I have a copy of a paper a friend wrote on correlating the level of success of the Russian harvest to the level of tank production for the following year. Truly fascinating.)

Key indicators of a strained fuel logistical support will not be just the reduced of armor or infantry vehicles in attacks, reduced artillery support (of which the reduction of fires is about 50% of what it was in the first year of the war. Since the Russians also used crates for shipping weapons and ammo instead of pallets (like NATO), the trucks that receive the off load of the rail shipments (the Russian Army is very rail bound) may start being replaced by horse drawn wagons. In WWII most of the German army was supplied in that fashion, especially on the OstFront.

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Images: Fair Use

Carl began his military career as a Marine Sergeant stationed in various locations, including Japan and Camp Pendleton, before shifting gears to become an Elementary Special Education teacher and working in EMS in Flagstaff in 1977. Opting out of Marine Corps duties in 1978, he joined the Army in January 1979, directly reporting to the Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca. Throughout the early 1980s, he served as a Middle East Analyst for the 82nd Airborne Division and later aided in preparing the deployment of the first US Battalion to the Multinational Force and Observers in February 1982.

Transitioning roles, he became a Middle East Analyst for XVIIIth Airborne Corps, contributing to Operation Urgent Fury. In 1984, he joined the Ranger Regiment and later attended the University of Maryland in Heidelberg, graduating in 1988. Assigned to 1st Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg in 1989, he found himself deploying to Desert Storm in 1990 as an Intelligence Sergeant. Post-war, he continued his service in various intelligence management roles, completing his MA in International Relations before retiring.

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