Serbia is preparing to take over the Russian oil giant. Reaction to US sanctions

Serbia is preparing an amendment to the draft budget law that would enable the takeover of the Russian-owned and US-sanctioned oil company Serbian Oil Industry (NIS), said Ana Brnabic, head of parliament, in an interview with Euronews. Hungary offered help to Serbia with oil supplies.

– One of the amendments submitted will be the one that assumes that at some point we will take over NIS – said Brnabic. The speaker of the Serbian parliament added that the chamber would start debating the amendments to the budget bill, prepared by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that if the United States does not lift the sanctions imposed on NIS, the company's refinery – the only one in the country – will be closed in four days. He added that the Serbian government will give the Russian owners of NIS 50 days to sell their shares, after which Belgrade will submit a buyout offer to them.

The president assured that the country still has fuel reserves, thanks to which national supplies are not at risk in the near future.

On Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto traveled to Belgrade to discuss the situation surrounding the sanctioned company. He assured that Budapest intends to provide assistance to Belgrade after the suspension of oil supplies from Croatia.

The minister declared in Belgrade that The Hungarian fuel company MOL is ready to increase energy supplies to Serbia. Szijjarto said in a video shared on Facebook that MOL had doubled deliveries to Serbia in November and would deliver two and a half times more crude oil and fuel than usual in December.

In January, the United States included NIS on the list of companies subject to sanctions in order to – as it was announced – prevent the financing of the war in Ukraine with money from Russian energy companies. The restrictions entered into force, after being postponed several times, in early October. Banks then stopped processing NIS payments, and Croatia's JANAF pipeline stopped deliveries of crude oil to its refineries.

Washington aims to completely eliminate Russian capital from NIS and on November 15 gave the company until February 13 to find a buyer for the Russian shares.

Since 2008, the majority shareholders in NIS are Gazprom and Gazprom Neft, the oil company of Gazprom, which owns approximately 96 percent. its shares. At that time, Gazprom Neft owned 50 percent. shares in NIS, the Serbian state – 29.87 percent, and Gazprom – 6.15 percent. The remaining shares belonged to citizens, current and former employees and other minority shareholders.

Although the ownership structure of NIS has changed several times recently, the concern is still mostly in the hands of Russian companies. Gazprom withdrew from NIS in September, and its shares were taken over by another company managed by it: Intelligence from St. Petersburg – according to data from the Belgrade Stock Exchange.

Jakub Bawołek (PAP)

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