Russian diesel output set to fall 7.5% m/m to 7 MM tonnes in August
Production of diesel in Russia could decline by around 7.5% in August from July to 7.1 metric MMt due to outages and maintenance work at refineries, calculations, based on assessments of two industry sources, showed on Friday.
The sources expected Russia to give priority to trying to meet domestic diesel demand during the harvesting campaign, and that could mean diesel exports will fall by a fifth from July.
Russia's seaborne diesel and gasoil exports have already shrunk in August to about 2.7 MMt–2.8 MMt, the lowest since September 2023, as a result of refinery maintenance and high domestic fuel demand, data from LSEG and the sources that could not be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly show.
Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy on Friday reported a deeper drop to the lowest level since October 2020 according to initial estimates based on vessel tracking systems.
It said seaborne exports of Russian diesel and gasoil declined to around 690,000 bpd on Aug. 1–25 from 960,000 bpd in July.
"The decline in refined product exports may reflect strong demand in Russia in August or continued potential problems in the refinery sector, which is possible given the opacity of Russian data. In both cases, this is more of a bullish signal for the oil products and diesel market," it said.
The biggest contributor to the fuel output decline could be the Ryazan plant, controlled by Rosneft, which idled more than half the diesel hydrotreater capacity. The industry sources said they expected high-quality diesel production at the plant to decline by 60% this month.
Output at the Gazprom Neft-owned Omsk refinery will fall due to the outage at the CDU-11 primary unit following a fire this week that killed one worker and injured six more.
The Perm and Volgograd oil plants, which halted their hydrocracker units, as well as the Novokuybyshev refinery, will also see their diesel output declining, industry sources said.
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