Russia is wildly importing Chinese gasoline, leaving European and American observers bewildered: what's going on?
According to reports from the International News Agency and the "Kommersant" newspaper, Russia has openly admitted facing a serious fuel shortage and is taking emergency measures - wildly importing gasoline from China to alleviate the crisis. This country, which possesses 11% of the world's oil reserves, now has to cancel import tariffs and purchase gasoline from its Asian neighbor through the Far East route.
The continuous attacks by Ukrainian drones on Russian oil refining facilities are considered the direct cause of this crisis. These attacks have forced 38% of Russia's refining capacity to be paralyzed, with daily gasoline production dropping by 80,000 tons.
According to reports from The Washington Post and the Russian "Business日报", Ukraine's recent new strategy has focused on Russian refineries, leading to nearly 40% of refining capacity being idle.
Data from the Russian energy market analysis institution (Seala) shows that many refineries have been forced to shut down after being attacked by Ukrainian drones, as they are difficult to repair.
In early October, Ukrainian drones hit the fourth largest refinery in Russia - the Kstovo Refinery of Lukoil in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
This refinery has an annual capacity of 17 million tons, not only processing oil from Siberia and Tatarstan, but also being a key base for road asphalt and plastic raw materials.
In addition, on October 4th, one of Russia's largest refineries, the Kirov Refinery, stopped operating its largest crude distillation unit CDU-6 after being attacked by drones.
This unit has an annual processing capacity of 8 million tons, accounting for about 40% of the total processing capacity of the refinery. Sources said that it would take about a month to resume production.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1845384314426380/
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