Damage to refineries from drone attacks and technical outages led Russia to export more crude than it planned in February, potentially undermining its pledge to curb sales under an OPEC+ pact.
Under the deal with the OPEC+ group of leading oil producers Russia is capping its crude oil production at 9.5 million barrels per day (bpd). It is also voluntarily reducing exports of crude oil and fuel by 300,000 bpd and 200,000 bpd of fuel respectively from the average May-June level.
Analysts say it would be hard for Moscow to stick to this as amounts of unrefined crude accumulate and Russia's ability to refine oil remains limited.
OPEC's office in Vienna has not replied to a request for comment, while Russia's energy ministry declined comments.
There are already signs of increasing oil supplies from Russia. Oil loadings from the ports of Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk are seen up by some 0.7 million metric tonnes compared to the preliminary plan at 8.2 million tons (2.1 million barrels per day).
"To the extent that gasoline and diesel exports contract, (one) would expect crude exports to rise," Ronald Smith from Moscow-based BCS Global Markets brokerage, said.
Russia's Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea will not resume operations until March, sources have said, citing damage from a Ukrainian drone attack.
Other incidents affecting Russia's energy infrastructure could also lead to additional oil exports in February, traders say. Drones attacks have damaged the Ust-Luga and Volgograd refineries in the Baltic and southern Russian in recent days.
That will result in exports of naphtha falling by a third or some 127,500-136,000 bpd, according to traders and LSEG ship-tracking data, while jet fuel exports could fall by some 20,000 bpd.
"If primary processing is declining, then - taking into account unchanged oil production and limited storage capacity - crude oil exports should rise. This would have a negative impact on the commitments to OPEC+ on crude oil," Alexei Kokin, an industry analyst, said.
