site.btaPresident Vucic: Croatia Will Not Buy Sanctioned Serbian Oil Company NIS

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said, as reported by local media, that Croatia will not buy Serbia’s oil company NIS (Naftna industrija Srbije), which is under US sanctions and majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft.

"Since I see that in Croatia they keep spreading the story about becoming owners, I just have to tell them, and if there are any Russians thinking about this too, let me inform them, nothing of the sort will happen. Just keep that in mind," Vucic said in an interview for the private broadcaster Informer TV.

The Serbian President said he had held difficult talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier on Monday, during which the issue of NIS was one of the main topics.

"The discussions with the IMF are tough, certainly not easy. It’s important for us that they confirm the agreement on Thursday and that their main board approves it in Washington on December 19, St Nicholas Day (according to the Julian calendar). This is crucial for our credit rating and everything else. There are risks, and the biggest one, of course, is NIS, that’s decisive for us," Vucic said.

Over the weekend, Vucic announced that if no solution is reached this week in talks with the Russian and American sides regarding NIS, Serbia will take "independent action". He did not specify what he meant by that.

In early January, the United States said it would impose sanctions on Serbia’s only oil company, NIS, because of the war in Ukraine and the "secondary risk" stemming from its Russian ownership. Washington demanded the complete withdrawal of Russian capital from the company but has postponed the enforcement of the sanctions eight times since.

NIS operates Serbia’s only oil refinery, located in Pancevo near Belgrade. The facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tonnes and meets most of the country’s needs. The Serbian state holds a 29.9% stake in NIS, while Gazprom Neft remains the majority shareholder with 44.9%. In late September, the St Petersburg-based company Intelligence, linked to Gazprom, acquired an additional 11.3% stake.