Mr. Ernst and Mr. Krutikhin noted that, unlike in other oil infrastructure such as pipelines, a lot of complex machinery and sophisticated engineering goes into refineries, and they can take several months to fix. Some analysts say the repairs could take longer than usual because sanctions prohibit Western sales of certain components to Russia.
An attack on the midstream is fundamentally different from burning oil at the well in terms of how it affects how much carbon goes into the atmosphere; it results in oil not being extracted and burned.