From the Unnamed Military Analyst
UKRAINE’S ANTI-OIL STRATEGY IS A LOOMING DISASTER FOR RUSSIA

A drone here, a drone there, then drones are everywhere, hitting key refining equipment that shuts down entire refineries. The latest has been the huge Moscow operation.
The Russians denied it was damaged but recent video revealed literally hundreds of tankers lined up on freeways, apparently ordered there to take away the refined product stuck on site and the crude they couldn’t move.
It’s not however as simple a strategy as causing inconvenience.
Russia has a unique problem with oil production that only a small area of Alaska has to deal with in anything like a comparable way. Winter, harsh super-deep freeze winters like nowhere else on Earth oil is drilled.
These winters mean that oil extraction can never stop, the pipelines must always flow, the wellheads must never close down. In negative temperatures most of us cannot imagine, keeping the machines pumping and the oil moving under pressure to stop it from freezing or becoming excessively viscous and causing blockages is critical.
Back in 1989 Russian oil exports collapsed and the industry was left to rot. Vast swathes of the arctic oil industry ground to a stop and within months it was permanently unusable. It took 30 years to restore the pre-89 level of production.
And Russia couldn’t have done it alone any more than it did in the 1980’s. Thousands of western technicians and billions in western investment was needed to put it back into viable use. Russians didn’t have the supporting industry or the technology or the human technical experience to carry out such a major industrial redevelopment. And they still don’t.
Every time a refinery closes down, every time a storage depot is lost, means Russia can’t pump crude oil.
In the past it gained exemptions from OPEC+ from production cuts because of its ‘winter factor’. Russia gained hugely from this, seeing prices rise for no cuts on its part and cashed in handsomely for no effort. It didn’t once cut production.
Then came the attack on Ukraine and the loss of overseas markets.
America ramped up production and is now the largest oil producer by a factor of almost two, at twice the output of Saudi Arabia. There is no oil shortage in the wider world. American production rates have totally undermined OPEC price gauging. The price of oil is around $72pb which is barely sustainable for some of the Middle East economies- Iran is struggling with it as is Iraq and Kuwait. Russia is in an even worse situation with sanctioned prices and restrictions on its tanker fleet.
Every oil refinery hit by a drone is forcing Russia to cut production at the well heads. It has nowhere to store the oil it drills and nowhere sufficient to refine it. Production cuts have had to be made - estimated now to have reached over 1 million barrels per day at the start of this year and likely to have doubled by now. With limited shipping to export the crude, more cuts are essential. It became so much of an issue Russia declared oil production information a state secret in May.
And Ukraine knows the worst is yet to come.
A wave of drone strikes against refineries in early winter will force yet more capacity cuts in the dead cold. That will mean permanent and likely irretrievable closures. Oil wells closed in winter will likely be permanently ruined and require re-drilling. Tens of thousands of kilometres of pipelines will need repairs and inspections once oil stops moving. Wellheads will become unrecoverable.
This is what Ukraine’s war on the refineries and the storage sites means. As they attack the export terminals and the transport pipelines to those terminals, the grip on Russian oil exports tightens. Production itself is constrained and expensive. And Russia has no answers.
It is so dependent on oil for its income it faces an economic existential crisis down the road. Western companies won’t want to be burned again once peace comes. It is risking its current and future generations' prosperity. As drone attacks continue...
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