Moscow's biggest oil refinery may stay offline until 2027 as the US reserve hits a 40-year low

Moscow's largest oil refinery cannot process crude until next year and may stay down until 2027, multiple Reuters-sourced reports said, after Ukrainian drone strikes knocked it fully offline. Losing a refinery of that size for a year or more pulls real volumes of gasoline and diesel out of the export market, the kind of product-supply hit that can firm fuel prices even while crude sits soft.

The supply backdrop

US numbers cut the other way on crude. Commercial crude oil inventories fell through June, and the EIA put Strategic Petroleum Reserve crude at a four-decade low. A thin reserve removes the shock absorber if a hurricane or outage hits this summer. Crude inventories drawing down usually supports prices, yet the flat market stayed soft, which says demand and OPEC supply matter more than inventories right now.

OPEC without the UAE

The bloc math keeps shifting. Analysts figure OPEC's global crude share could slip from 35 percent to 31 percent without the UAE. A smaller share means less pricing power and, usually, more barrels competing for buyers. That caps the upside for crude even with the Russian refinery loss on the product side.

The politics

President Trump is unhappy that gasoline is falling more slowly than crude. He is not the first president to make that complaint, and the answer is the same as always: refining margins, plus taxes and logistics, sit between a barrel and the pump. Iowa drivers did see relief, with gas down 12 cents as crude declined.

What to watch

Watch the Moscow refinery timeline, since a 2027 return would keep product supply tight for months. Track the SPR, because a four-decade low leaves little cushion. And watch the crack spread, where the split between soft crude and strike-hit product supply shows up first.