Photo copyright: Vladimir Gerdo/TASS
Rosneft, Russia's largest oil company by production, has again limited the sale of gasoline and diesel at its gas stations in at least seven regions. Less than a month ago, the company lifted all limits, but has now returned them after a new series of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries.
The authorities of several regions announced the introduction of restrictions over the weekend and on Monday morning, and the telegram channel “NeMoskva Speaks”* drew attention to this.
Limits apply in Karelia, Buryatia, Arkhangelsk, Novosibirsk and Penza regions, as well as in the Krasnoyarsk and Transbaikal territories.
In Transbaikalia, authorities said that Rosneft's restrictions apply throughout the country - the company is present in 62 regions. There are no statements on the introduction of limits on the official website of Rosneft. “People of Baikal”* contacted the hotline asking whether the restrictions had really been introduced throughout the country. The operator specified the region and then replied that he did not have such information.
“Rosneft is introducing restrictions in all regions of the country (30 liters city, 50 highway),” says the Ministry of Economic Development of the Trans-Baikal Territory in Max, but in Transbaikalia itself, according to the ministry, there is a limit of 50 liters. Fuel is not supplied into canisters. Chita.ru wrote about restrictions at network gas stations in the capital of the region, Chita, the day before.
According to the Ministry of Economy of Transbaikalia, taking into account the reserve, more than 26 thousand tons of fuel remain in the region. The supply should be enough for about a month. An additional 10 thousand tons of fuel are already being sent to Transbaikalia, of which over 6 thousand are AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline.
The head of Karelia, Artur Parfenchikov, announced the same limits on fuel sales on Sunday.
Why are restrictions being reintroduced?
Gasoline limits have returned amid renewed Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries - four enterprises associated with Rosneft have been attacked over the past week and a half.
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On October 30, the company’s Novokuibyshevsky oil refinery plant in the Samara region came under attack, and the next day, the Rosneft-owned Bashneft-Novoil plant in Ufa was attacked. On November 3, drones attacked Slavneft-YANOS in Yaroslavl, a joint venture between Rosneft and Gazprom Neft. On November 5, the blow hit the Ryazan oil refinery of Rosneft.
Two Rosneft plants attacked in recent days, in Ryazan and Yaroslavl, supply the capital region with gasoline. Through the same system, fuel is supplied to Moscow by the Lukoil refinery in Kstov, Nizhny Novgorod region, which was hit by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on November 1.
On the night of November 9, drones attacked the Kirishi oil refinery of Surgutneftegaz in the Leningrad region. The governor of the region, Alexander Drozdenko, said that “there are facts of a UAV hitting the industrial zone of the city of Kirishi.” According to him, a resident of Vsevolozhsk died as a result of the attack.
The NASA FIRMS system, which tracks fires using satellite data, detected a large fire on the plant's territory. The fire at the refinery is confirmed by the geoanalysis of the Astra* publication.
According to Bumaga's calculations*, drones have hit this enterprise at least for the fourth time since the beginning of the year and for the seventh time since the beginning of the war.
The Kirishi plant is one of the largest in Russia. Its rated capacity is 20 million tons of oil per year; it produces gasoline, diesel fuel and aviation kerosene, including for the St. Petersburg Pulkovo airport. In 2024, the plant processed 17.5 million tons, or 6.6% of all oil refining in the country, Reuters wrote. As Fontanka reported, this refinery accounts for about half of the fuel that St. Petersburg consumes.
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Business hit
So far, new blows to refineries have not affected prices. According to Rosstat, from October 27 to November 2, the average price of gasoline even decreased slightly. Russians nevertheless fear a new wave of the fuel crisis. In early November, after a drone strike on the Lukoil refinery in Kstovo, residents of the Nizhny Novgorod region began buying fuel en masse. The region has introduced limits on the sale of gasoline - no more than 40 liters per car.
Rosneft managers fear that due to Ukraine's regular attacks on Russian refineries, the industry will suffer long-term damage, Bloomberg previously wrote. According to the agency's interlocutors, constant repairs of plants may become prohibitive: spare parts for complex processing plants are difficult to find.
According to Bloomberg sources in Rosneft management, even a few months of war in Ukraine could cause serious damage to its business.
On Sunday it became known that the Trassa gas station chain had stopped operating. It operated for about 30 years and was the second largest in sales among independent gas station operators in Moscow and the Moscow region. The gas stations themselves belong to Gazprombank, and Trassa used them under a leasing agreement. None of the network’s 53 gas stations are operating, Interfax reported, citing the Moscow Region Ministry of Energy. The gas stations themselves are being confiscated by Gazprombank Leasing: 40 gas stations have already been sealed, employees are not allowed there, and the rest will be confiscated in the next few days.
Trossa's problems continued from the spring of 2026. Experts interviewed by Forbes Russia explained this by the business model: the company purchased large volumes of petroleum products and resold them at a relatively small margin. When wholesale gasoline prices increased due to the fuel crisis, the revenue of Eurotrans, which owns Trassa, decreased, and profits gave way to losses. In 2026, the company committed technical defaults several times, and on September 7, the Moscow Exchange recorded a default on all of its exchange-traded bonds.
*In the Russian register of “foreign agents”
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