Cross-layer insight

Refineries on a single crude lifeline

Inland refineries with no coastline depend entirely on one pipeline — and that dependence is now a target.

A coastal refinery can switch crude suppliers by re-routing a tanker. A landlocked one cannot: it lives or dies by the pipeline that feeds it. The Druzhba system supplying Hungary and Slovakia is the textbook case — repeatedly struck through 2025, with no maritime alternative for the refineries at its end.

Overlay refineries on the pipeline network and the chokepoints stand out: clusters of refining capacity hanging off a single line, where one incident upstream halts everything downstream.

Layers in this view

RefineriesPipelines

SOURCE: Global Energy Monitor — oil infrastructure & pipeline trackers (CC BY 4.0)