| Summary: | The Russian refining system is the third largest in the world, ranking only behind the USA and China with approximately 275 mt of total capacity and 2011 throughput of 257 mt. However, despite this high output and capacity utilisation, the majority of Russia’s refineries are of significantly lower quality than their global peers, with an average Nelson complexity index of just over 5 compared to a European average of 6.5 and a US average of 9.6. The fundamental reason for this difference is that all but one of the refineries in Russia were built during the Soviet era to service the USSR’s enormous military and industrial complex, with more than 75 percent being constructed before 1970 and with a focus as much on producing fuel oil to power tanks and other military equipment as on producing light products for other transport needs. Power generation was also a major user of fuel oil in the Soviet era, with bunker fuel and demand from the railways accounting for the remainder of demand. As a result, by the end of the Soviet era approximately 45 percent of Russia’s output of major oil products was accounted for by fuel oil, with 98 mt being produced in 1991.
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