Rosneft CEO says situation on Russian fuel market is not easy

MOSCOW: The situation on Russia’s fuel market is not easy, Igor Sechin, the CEO of the country’s largest oil company Rosneft, said on Friday, the state RIA news agency reported, a day after a major Ukrainian drone attack on an oil refinery in Moscow.

“There are objective factors, fundamental factors, and situational factors: high seasonal demand and intensive agricultural work are coinciding with unscheduled maintenance at refineries,” RIA quoted Sechin as saying.

The strike on the oil refinery in southeast Moscow, run by Gazprom Neft, was the second in three days and part of a wider Ukrainian campaign to try to cripple the oil industry whose revenues help finance Russia’s war effort. Rosneft’s own Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea has also been targeted and halted operations in April.

Sechin said Rosneft’s own network of over 3,000 petrol stations was operating normally. Rosneft saw supplying the domestic market with fuel as a priority, he added, and was not exporting any fuel.

“Under the current circumstances, we guarantee fuel supplies to socially significant facilities, state-funded enterprises, industry, and agricultural companies. There are practically no refuelling restrictions at our filling stations,” he was cited as saying.

A Reuters witness said on Friday that employees at some Rosneft stations in the Moscow region were telling customers that fuelling was not possible for technical reasons and asking them to come back in few hours.

Russia’s anti-monopoly watchdog has demanded explanations from two private petrol station chains operating in Moscow after they hiked prices by up to 20% this week following attacks on the Moscow refinery.