MOSCOW, May 30 (Reuters) - Rosneft's Black Sea oil refinery in Tuapse may remain idle until at least mid-June, despite being repaired after a May 17 drone attack, due to low profitability, four industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The plant is technically ready to resume oil processing after an emergency shut down triggered by the Ukrainian drone attack, but will remain idle amid low profitability for exports of refined fuels compared to crude.

"It's not profitable to refine oil. It's not interesting to ship products. At the moment, it's more efficient to export crude," one of the sources said.

Rosneft did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

"The plant was fixed (after fire), the damage was minor, but refining has not been resumed. We hear that Rosneft was seeking price increases from its (petroleum products) buyers. The plant does not start operations, while negotiations are ongoing," another industry source said.

The export-oriented Tuapse plant produces naphtha, fuel oil, vacuum gasoil and high-sulphur diesel, mainly supplying Turkey, China, Malaysia and Singapore. It supplies almost no gasoline and low-sulphur diesel to Russia's domestic market.

Tuapse's only crude distillation unit (CDU) was shut down on May 17 after the drone attack, although it was not damaged and could be fully operational, a third source said.

Security concerns are an additional reason to keep the plant idle while refinery margins remain weak, a fourth source said. Attacks are likely to be less damaging for plants that are offline, that source added.

The Tuapse plant, which has processing capacity of 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, was also struck by a drone in January and resumed work by around the end of April, industry sources said.

In 2023 the plant processed 9.322 million metric tons of crude oil, producing 3.306 million tons of gasoil and 3.123 million tons of fuel oil. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Potter)