Oil products markets of European countries: production capacities and transportation infrastructure
The changes taking place on the part of demand for petroleum products and raw material supply to refineries, require constant application of refining adaptation mechanism that takes into account the influence of internal and external factors, including aspects of dependence on import and export deliveries of oil and oil products, thus raising the problem of energy security in its broadest sense. The article presents the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the European refining industry and its influence on macroeconomic indicators of countries in the region, including the volume of attracted investments in oil refining. The article also discusses the key structural peculiarities of the countries’ oil products markets including “dieselization” of the automobile park of the countries under consideration and introduction of biofuel components in oil products’ composition; governmental measures which pay regulating impact on oil refining industry; territorial structure of oil processing capacities’ placement; export potential of the countries under consideration in view of fuel oil deliveries to external markets and import volumes of the fuels to guarantee the internal demand in conditions of the latter ones’ structural deficit. A number of problems arise due to contemporary state and tendencies of development of oil products markets, observed in the region’s countries because of technological limitations of oil refineries, oil products real demand, raw material deliveries and storage capacities. The present situation and predictive values of indicators of oil processing industry activity are subjected to consideration in the present article in the light of global changes, taking place in the world oil and oil products markets.