The Moscow Refinery () is an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...

plant in the Russian capital of

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. It is also known as the Kapotnya Refinery, after the

Kapotnya District Kapotnya District () is an administrative district (raion) of South-Eastern Administrative Okrug, and one of the 125 raions of Moscow, Russia. Kapotnya is best known as the site of Moscow Refinery, one of the few remaining industrial facilities ...

in which it is located. This refinery has belonged to the Russian state-owned company

Gazprom PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐsˈprom) is a Russian State-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational Energy industry, energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. The Gazprom name is a contract ...

since 2011.

History

Soviet era

In the 1930s, Soviet industrialization led to the need of more

oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied pet ...

to fulfill the rising fuel demand. In 1936, the

People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry The People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (Narkomtiazhprom; ) was a government ministry in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. which operated the electric power system in the Soviet Union was subordinated to the commissariat. Brief overview The Peop ...

approved the construction of a new refinery near the

Moskva River The Moskva (, ''Moskva-reka'') is a river that flows through western Russia. It rises about west of Moscow and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About southeast of Moscow, at the cit ...

in the

area, which began operation in 1938.

World War II

During the Eastern Front of WWII, this refinery was crucial to the Soviet war effort because it provided crucial fuel supplies for the Soviet military. Some of the facilities were also moved to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

to prevent capture by Nazi forces. Because of the importance of the Moscow Refinery to the war effort, the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

frequently bombed the plant. The Soviets also constructed a

decoy A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''eenden kooi'', " duck cage") is usually a person, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to ...

refinery about 3km east of the real plant to protect the plant from bombing. Between 1941 and 1945, the refinery processed an estimated 2.8 million tons of oil.

Postwar Development

In August 1960, a decree from the Presidium of Soviet Russia incorporated the refinery plant into the administrative boundaries of the city of

. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, new units were added into the refinery to expand production range, including for

dehydrogenation In chemistry, dehydrogenation is a chemical reaction that involves the removal of hydrogen, usually from an organic molecule. It is the reverse of hydrogenation. Dehydrogenation is important, both as a useful reaction and a serious problem. At ...

, producing

diesel fuel Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil (historically) or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a re ...

polypropylene Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene. Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...

, and

catalytic reforming Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert petroleum naphtha, naphthas from crude oil into liquid products called reformates, which are premium "blending stocks" for high-octane gasoline. The process converts low-octane linear hydr ...

. After this modernization process, the refinery's capacity rose to about 12 million tons of oil per year.

Russian Era

In 1994, the refinery was organized into a

joint-stock company A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareho ...

during

privatization Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

. The plant was jointly operated by Sibir Energy and the

Russian government The Russian Government () or fully titled the Government of the Russian Federation () is the highest federal executive governmental body of the Russian Federation. It is accountable to the president of the Russian Federation and controlled by ...

. In March 1998, a fire broke out at the refinery, which destroyed a refining unit. In 2011, the state-owned

acquired Sibir Energy and the refinery became entirely state-owned. On 1 September 2024, during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, a fire broke out at the refinery, after reports of a massive Ukrainian drone attack.

References

{{Reflist Oil refineries in Russia Oil refineries in the Soviet Union Buildings and structures in Moscow