EIR has reported the huge spike in prices of diesel, vital to transport and agriculture operations globally, relative to the price of crude oil. The ZeroHedge website on Aug. 22 published details from an interview with an oil expert from Jefferies Investment Bank, on the impacts of Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s export capacities for oil-products. Details from that interview on diesel capacity follow:
“Refinery Outages. The duration of downtime depends on the complexity of the unit hit and the availability of replacement materials, with no average downtime per strike. That said, ~50% of outages are <2 weeks and ~75% are <1 month, but there have been a handful of 3-6 month outages (e.g., Moscow). An oil expert highlights that Soviet refinery units were designed to be dispersed to defend against strikes, and that Russia has developed domestic engineering capabilities. Still, sanctions and technology restrictions play a role…. To compensate for the damaged refineries, functional refineries are running at higher utilizations….
