Russia's Refinery Runs in December Down

Russian oil refinery runs in December fell by 2.1 percent month-on-month or 123,787 barrels per day (bpd) due to a series of outages, data from the Energy Ministry and Reuters calculations showed.

Refineries processed 5.862 million barrels of crude oil per day in December versus 5.986 million in November.

Three major Russian refineries were hit by unplanned outages in December, Reuters data showed.

Due to a leak on a major pipeline delivering oil to the Black Sea port of Tuapse in December the Tuapse refinery, owned by Rosneft, dropped its capacity by 29.6 percent to 139,814 bpd from 198,716 bpd in November. As a result, an additional 0.6 million tonnes of crude oil were exported in December from that refinery via the port of Tuapse.

Perm refinery, owned by Lukoil, decreased its processing in December by 29.3 percent to 203,514 bpd from 287,703 bpd in the previous month due to an accident at a crude distillation unit (CDU).

The other Lukoil refinery, Norsi, was stopped in December due to power outages and was forced to suspend its processing and oil products supplies for a few days.

Moscow refinery, owned by Gazprom Neft, increased its capacity by 74.4 percent to 190,060 bpd in December from 108,948 bpd in November after a major overhaul.

Total gasoline production at Russian refineries rose 6.2 percent in December to 114,597 tonnes per day, Reuters calculations showed.

Gasoil production was up 1.2 percent month-on-month at 219,719 tonnes per day.

Fuel oil output increased 1.2 percent in December to 229,639 tonnes per day, while jet kerosene production was down by 9.6 percent to 23,942 tonnes per day.

December refinery runs were up by 3.2 percent year-on-year or 179,183 bpd.

Overall December gasoline output increased by 6.5 percent year-on-year. Gas oil and fuel oil production were up by 2.9 percent and 1.2 percent respectively, while jet kerosene output was down 10.9 percent.

Reporting by Natalia Chumakova