Russia will impose a six-month ban on gasoline exports starting March 1 to meet rising domestic demand, the RBC news outlet reported Tuesday, citing two government sources and a representative of Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Novak was said to have told Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in a letter last month that demand for fuel will grow because of summer vacation travel, spring fieldwork on farms and planned repairs at oil refineries. “In order to offset the booming demand for petroleum products, measures are needed to help stabilize domestic prices,” an internal letter Novak sent to Mishustin was quoted as saying by RBC.
Interfax mentions unscheduled repairs at refineries in Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd but fails to mention that they were recently targeted by drone attacks. Oh well.