Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
A large oil refinery may have up to 70 - yes - seventy - cracking columns, a smaller one perhaps 30 according to a brief internet search. So whacking one or two will be no more than a brief inconvenience, and anyone who imagines Ruzzia "doesn't have the capacity" to build enough towers to equip one single small refinery is, imho, living in dreamland. They're only big steel tubes with a bit of plumbig attached after all. Long lead-timeto replace maybe, but even so. There's nothing very technical about them and the loss of two or three out of 30 is hardly going to make a vast difference to output. OK, that just cuts 10% (ie decimates) the output of a small refinery, and half that of a large one. Big deal unless you can keep hitting them all every week for six months or more.
My brother-in-law spent many years in installing and servicing them including Russia. I asked him and he said that if you know where to hit, you can hinder more or less production in the whole refinery for a substantial time. We live in a globalised economy and Russians were dependent on technologies from the West either partly or fully for years. It is not that trivial to replace destroyed equipment by local sources especially if it must be in larger numbers. Thinking that it will not have an impact is rather naive and the whole problem escalates. In September Russia imposed ban on exporting diesel and now in March on gasoline which is unheard of measure.
Russia has a huge territory and to defend it is quite a challenge. This is not just a symbolic act, it may create quite an effect.