Russia’s Astrakhan gas plant halts oil products output due to outage

Russia’s Astrakhan gas processing plant, controlled by energy giant Gazprom GAZP.MM, halted production of petroleum products after a repair-related stoppageon March 30, the company said on Tuesday, confirming an earlier report from Reuters.

“The primary condensate processing unit was briefly stopped on March 30 for repair of the technological pipeline at the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant. On April 1, repair work was completed,” the spokesperson said.

“The production of light petroleum products will be resumed,” the spokesperson said without providing the timing.

Two industry sources told Reuters earlier on Tuesday Russia’s Astrakhan gas processing plant had haltedproduction of diesel and gasoline on March 31 due to unplanned maintenance.

One of the sources said the plant, located on the shores of the Caspian Sea, will try to restart production on Sunday.

Though the capacity of the plant is not hugely significant for Russia, its stoppage will likely add to Moscow’s worries around wide-scale outages ofrefinery capacity due to Ukrainian drone attacks.

Two traders said they got notification from St Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange about the suspension of diesel and gasoline sales from the plant due to an unplanned stoppage of oil product output.

The plant is capable of processing around 8,340 metric tons of gas condensate per day.

In 2023, it produced 703,000 tons of gasoline, or 1.6% of Russia’s total, as well as 492,000 tons of diesel (0.6%) and 299,000 tons of fuel oil (0.7%).
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Devika Syamnath)