Damages at Russia's Moscow after drone attack will not affect consumers: minister

A fire at the Moscow refinery will not affect consumers as it is possible to quickly ship the necessary volumes of oil products from one refinery to another, Russia's Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 5.

Tsivilyov said the fire did cause "problems" as the damage needed to be repaired, TASS news agency quoted him as saying.

A fire broke out at the site of the refinery Sept. 1 after debris from a destroyed drone hit what authorities called a technical building on the site of the plant.

The fire, which initially covered around 40 sq m but was later contained, was classified at the highest level of five but later downgraded to two, according to local reports.

While Tsivilyov was the first to officially admit that the repair would require "extra" work, there has been no official comment about the extent of the damage.

According to market sources, the whole refinery has been put in hot circulation after the fire, which is a standard procedure required to assess the damage, and the Euro+ complex was hit and shut down, although damage was minor and the complex could restart by the end of this week.

The Euro+ complex, commissioned in 2020, includes hydro treating, catalytic cracking, a catalytic reformer and visbreaking units.

Gasoline prices rose on the exchange floor after the incident, with both premium and regular unleaded recording gains, with premium unleaded reversing its earlier declines.

Meanwhile Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service also said at the forum in Vladivostok that it was close to completing its analysis of the factors that had pushed 95 RON prices up. According to market sources, prices of the higher octane gasoline soared due to refinery outages, but have been on a downtrend since August after Norsi restarted its FCC and reformer units and Belarus increased its gasoline supply on the St. Petersburg exchange.