Attacks on Russian refineries may disrupt global oil markets - IEA

That's according to Bloomberg, Ukrinform reports.

About 500,000 to 600,000 barrels a day of the country's crude processing capacity could be offline this quarter on a gross basis, before offsets, according to the IEA's monthly report.

The shutdown of these refineries or units for between four to eight weeks for repairs "could mean a significant loss" of Russian petroleum product exports, the agency said on Friday. International markets rely on Russian exports of diesel, naphtha and jet fuel, the IEA said.

The IEA effectively echoed a statement by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who warned that Ukrainian attacks "could have a knock-on effect" on the global energy market.

So far, the actual decline in oil refinery output has been much less. The IEA data shows that official weekly data on Russian refineries through the end of March matched crude oil production volumes of 5.0 to 5.2 million barrels per day, not the 4.6 million barrels per day indicated by an upper estimate of refinery outages.

Russian refiners processed an average of 5.25 million barrels per day in the first three days of April. Bloomberg calculations based on historical data show that despite the recovery since mid-March, daily refining volumes remain significantly below the 5.78 million barrels of crude processed in the first few days of April last year.