Geopolitical risk and oil prices: When refining capacities are targeted

As we recall in a recent article, written with Valérie Mignon, oil production facilities may be military objectives during a war or a conflict:

Mignon, V., & Saadaoui, J. (2024). How do political tensions and geopolitical risks impact oil prices? Energy Economics129, 107219.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014098832300717X

We noted that it could produce upward pressures on oil prices due to pessimistic expectations on future supply capacities (see the second row and the first column):

Source: authors’ elaborations.

On 13 March, Ukraine targeted Russian oil refineries with drones:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-20/ukraine-s-drones-threaten-russian-oil-industry-with-refinery-strikes

“Russia’s average daily oil refining rate fell to the lowest weekly level in ten months after a flurry of Ukrainian drone attacks hit several major facilities. Refiners processed 5.03 million barrels a day of crude from March 14 to 20, according to a person with knowledge of industry data. That’s down more than 400,000 barrels a day from the average for the first 13 days of the month, according to Bloomberg calculations based on historical data”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/russia-crude-oil-refining-drops-to-10-month-low-after-ukraine-drone-attacks

According to our work, this may exert upward pressures on oil prices, both due to supply shortages and to expected future supply shortages.

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