Quick update on the refinery fire and US sanctions against Russia

HUNGARY - In Brief 02 Nov 2025 by Istvan Racz

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MOL's refinery at Százhalombatta (called Dufi for short), the only one in Hungary, was hit by a major fire on October. It affected the biggest of the refinery's three distillation units, which represents about 40% of total capacity. A few days later, they started to gradually restart the unaffected parts of Dufi, and so far there has been no problem reported in that regard. On the damaged unit, still there has not been any conclusive report published on the extent of the damage or the time requirement of repair. Instead, MOL has kept repeating that the investigation regarding the matter still continues and has not been completed yet. That handful of industry and MOL experts who shared their preliminary views publicly so far concluded on this basis that the damage is likely to be really extensive and the time requirement of repair will be most likely a few months, running up to half a year potentially. This still does not imply that any serious supply bottlenecks should necessarily develop, given the high level of existing inventories, operational and strategic taken together.Regarding fuel price implications, a few days ago the government's cabinet minister Mr. Gulyás said at his weekly press conference that they had asked MOL to avoid price increases, and initiated talks with the company on the possible problems in doing so. There is a lot to talk about indeed, as MOL, and much more its consumers, are rather heavily taxed, and so it would be reasonable to expect that the government should take its part of the extra costs and losses. Given the proximity of the election, any retail fuel price increase could be highly detrimental for the governing party, of course.A spec...