Attacks and maintenance outages leave nearly 12% of global refining offline

Repair delays and minimal expected global supply gains from Russia constrain fuel recovery

Scale and causes. Nearly 12% of the world’s refining capacity for making gasoline, diesel and other fuels was offline as of Oct. 23, according to market intelligence firm Industrial Info Resources, or IIR. The figure covered damage from drone and missile attacks in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, as well as planned refinery-maintenance outages. Drones launched from Ukraine and long-range missiles fired from Iran and Yemen were among the attacks that crippled dozens of oil refineries in those countries.

The attacks have made fuel production a target in the Russia-Ukraine war and the conflict in the Middle East. Jim Krane, an energy specialist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, said, “You don’t need to kill the enemy’s entire military, you just need to deprive it of fuel,” adding, “It’s a key warfighting strategy.”

Ukraine’s attacks have sharply reduced Russia’s fuel-making capacity. Ukrainian forces launched more than 100 attacks on nearly 30 oil refineries in the country in recent months. The affected facilities normally have an operating capacity of 6.1 million barrels a day, about 80% of Russia’s output, but IIR said the attacks reduced that figure to 1.6 million barrels a day. The strikes knocked 19 refineries completely offline and damaged several others, taking out 59% of the country’s fuel-making capacity.

Before the strikes, Russia was one of the world’s top diesel suppliers, accounting for roughly 10% of the global market. Moscow suspended exports in July to protect domestic supplies.

The U.S.-Iran conflict has led to more than a dozen direct attacks on refineries throughout the region. The affected facilities have a combined operating capacity of 7.6 million barrels a day, and IIR said the damage has reduced fuel production capacity by more than 1 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia’s Jazan facility, which Houthi militants hit in September, remains completely offline. Other damage to pipelines and related infrastructure has slowed production and reduced daily capacity by as much as 75% at some facilities.

Saudi Arabia has experienced a roughly 25% drop in oil refining capacity because of attacks and logistical bottlenecks, IIR data showed. The refineries were expected to take months to repair. Ben Cahill, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “Pipelines can be repaired and restored pretty quickly, but refineries and petrochemical facilities are just big, complex places and they can’t be fixed right away.”

In the United States, high fuel costs are driving inflation ahead of the midterm elections, and President Trump is seeking ways to lower prices as congressional Republicans face tight races. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said U.S. military escorts have recently allowed more oil traffic to move through the Persian Gulf than before the conflict.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries for high fuel prices, while giving less public emphasis to the conflict in the Middle East that halted oil-tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz until recent weeks. Rogers said, “As the President has said many times, today’s high oil prices reflect pre-existing issues: years of Democrat policies that shuttered U.S. refineries, compounded by the destruction of refineries in the Russia-Ukraine war—a conflict he inherited.”

Trump has suggested that the United States will resume attacks on Iran after the midterms. David Goldwyn, head of Goldwyn Global Strategies and a former Obama administration official, said Iran would likely escalate strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in response. “It doesn’t look good in the Gulf,” Goldwyn said. “There could be decreased output and longer outages depending on the level of damages.”

Constraints on recovery. After choosing not to implement his own diesel-export ban, Trump struck a surprise agreement with President Vladimir Putin that would lift sanctions and allow Russia to export hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel. The Wall Street Journal characterized the accord as a major U.S. foreign-policy shift. Energy analysts said its market effect would likely be minimal because Russia’s remaining refineries were already running at full capacity. If Russia could export what it had promised, the fuel would move from its domestic market rather than increase global supplies. Diesel futures were little changed from Oct. 9, when Trump announced the agreement.

Policy options and limits. U.S. oil executives did not advocate for the Russian diesel agreement, according to people close to the industry. Last month, they proposed that the administration ask China to increase refinery output. Rystad Energy said Chinese refinery runs were 12% lower than before the war. That suggested China had spare capacity that could ease the global diesel shortfall, which Rystad pegs at about 2 million barrels a day.

The U.S. is exploring invoking the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to spend up to $150 million on additional refining capacity. Any investment could take years to produce more fuel because refineries are complex and require logistics for supplying crude. Typical major upgrades at large refineries cost multiple billions of dollars.

During a trip to India last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar about boosting refined-product exports, according to people close to the two governments. Administration officials have made similar requests of Greek refiners. Neither country has much additional capacity available: Indian refineries are running near full capacity, and Greek petroleum exports represent a small share of the global market. Ed Chow, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “Someone asked me if Trump was throwing a Hail Mary pass. My reaction is, he’s throwing the ball way out of bounds and saying, ‘Well, at least I tried.’”

Historical context. Even though the modalities of war have changed, crippling oil refineries was not a new wartime strategy for the United States or its allies. During World War II, Allied forces bombed many of German oil refineries, grounding Nazi fighter planes and damaging Adolf Hitler’s tanks and ground troops in Europe.

Civilian-infrastructure context. Ukraine has focused its strikes on military and economic assets. International bodies have accused Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, of intentionally targeting civilians and energy infrastructure. The Wall Street Journal reported that Moscow recently attacked Ukraine’s electrical grid, destroying 28 critical substations and leaving 550,000 households without power ahead of winter.