Russian oil companies have allocated significant funds to protect oil refineries. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said this today.
“As for the protection of energy facilities, businesses are taking a responsible approach to this. In accordance with the threat model, they ensure the protection of facilities through passive protection measures, and also work with the Defense Ministry and the Russian National Guard to provide the necessary means to protect refinery facilities,” he said, TASS reports.
“Over the past few months, this work has been stepped up in view of the increased attacks on oil refineries,” Novak added.
Companies’ defense spending is significant, but it is lower than the losses caused by downtime.
“Accordingly, our companies are allocating funds and working with the Defense Ministry. These are major expenses for oil refineries and energy facilities. But it is worth it because a refinery shutdown would result in major losses for enterprises. And companies are indeed incurring additional costs today,” the deputy prime minister said.
Novak believes that Russian refineries are now protected no worse than those in the United Arab Emirates.
“Believe me, our protection is no worse, and perhaps even better, given the experience gained over the past few months. Our design institutes are working very closely with oil refineries to protect the facilities, and the level, in my view, is much better because it is based on a more stringent threat model,” he said.
According to him, the schedules for planned maintenance were shifted to ensure fuel production.
“At present, about 10% of our enterprises are undergoing maintenance, but at the same time we have postponed scheduled maintenance that was planned for the summer period to later dates in order to ensure maximum production at the current stage and supplies to the domestic market,” he said.
