site.btaSerbian Oil Company NIS Can Continue Operations for Only Four More Days, President Vucic Says

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said that operations at the oil company NIS can continue for only four more days before coming to a complete halt, RTS reported.

In an emergency statement to the public, Vucic said that the country’s only refinery - located in Pancevo, near the Serbian capital, Belgrade - is currently operating at a minimal capacity.

"It has not been shut down yet. It is working in what is known as 'silent mode,' but we have only four days left before the refinery is completely closed, unless a license is approved by the US government," Vucic said.

"Our country has been placed in a very difficult situation," he added, noting that there is a risk of secondary sanctions.

"We still have today and tomorrow to try to obtain an operating license. Whether we get it depends on the Americans," the Serbian head of State said. "Until now, we have done everything our Russian friends asked of us," he added.

"NIS has already begun to exhaust its operational reserves. If there is no inflow of oil, that is, if we do not receive the license, NIS will be left with reserves of 55,000 tons of diesel and 50,000 tons of petrol," Vucic said.

Estimates show that the reserves will last until December 28, he added.

US sanctions against NIS came into force on October 9, after being postponed eight times.

In early January, the United States announced that because of the war in Ukraine and the "secondary risk," it would impose sanctions on Serbia’s only oil company, NIS, which is majority-owned by the Russian oil giant Gazprom. Washington demanded the complete withdrawal of Russian capital from the company, but it was only a few days ago that the Russian side said that it was prepared to sell its stake.

"When the sanctions were already announced and the Americans kept postponing them month after month, we accepted every Russian proposal and did not want to change the business terms because we did not want to damage our relations," Vucic said.

Serbia's President added that NIS’s ownership structure had changed three times this year - in February, May, and September, as the Russians sought to adapt their operations to the sanctions.

The Serbian State holds 29.9% of NIS shares, while Gazprom Neft remains the main owner with 44.9%. In late September, St Petersburg–based Intelligence, a Gazprom affiliate, acquired parent company Gazprom's stake of 11.3%.

The refinery in Pancevo has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tons and covers the majority of the country’s needs.