D-day for NIS: licenses expire, US decision awaited
Both OFAC licenses covering NIS expire at midnight on June 16, with no final verdict from Washington by evening. Minister Djedovic Handanovic says Serbia and MOL have closed all open issues.
- Both OFAC licenses for NIS, the operating one and the one covering the MOL-Gazprom Neft talks, expire at midnight on June 16.
- On June 10, NIS filed a request for a new special license to keep operating without disruption after expiry.
- Gazprom Neft holds 56.15% of NIS shares, the core of the sanctions problem.
- The minister says Serbia and MOL have closed all open issues, with a verdict expected by morning at the latest.
The two licenses from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that keep Naftna Industrija Srbije running both expire at midnight on June 16, and by evening there is still no final decision from Washington. The first permit allows the company to operate despite sanctions; the second covers negotiations on changing the ownership structure between Hungary’s MOL and Russia’s Gazprom Neft. Without at least one of them, the legal framework that holds NIS in business disappears at the same moment.
The root of the problem is ownership. Gazprom Neft holds 56.15% of NIS shares, so a company under Russian control remains exposed to the US sanctions regime until that stake changes hands. That is why, on June 10, NIS asked OFAC for a new special license that would allow uninterrupted operations even after the current permit lapses. This is a technical extension that buys time while the transaction over the majority stake is brought to a close.
What exactly is Washington being asked to decide?
Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said that Serbia and MOL have closed all open issues. “Serbia and MOL have closed all open issues and reached a compromise on the shareholder agreement for the purchase of the majority stake in NIS,” the minister said. In her account, that removes the obstacle on the Serbian side to a move that would take the ownership stake out of the reach of sanctions.
The decision, however, does not rest with Belgrade but with OFAC. Because of the time difference between Serbia and Washington, a verdict may only arrive in the morning hours Central European time, when the working day begins in the US administration. That means NIS enters June 17 without formal confirmation that a license exists, even temporarily, an uncertainty that for an energy company is measured in hours rather than days.
How real is the supply risk?
NIS says its filling stations are well stocked and that the public has no reason to worry at the pump for now. The pressure point is not retail but production: the biggest operational risk is a shutdown of the refinery in Pancevo, a plant that supplies a large share of the domestic market with petroleum products. A halt at the refinery would not be felt immediately at the pump, but it would shift the entire supply logistics and raise the question of importing finished fuels.
For now this is a warning of a possible stoppage, not a shutdown. If the license extension arrives, the refinery keeps running without interruption and the whole scenario stays hypothetical. If it does not, NIS enters operations without legal cover, with all the consequences that carries for suppliers, banks and deliveries. The difference between those two outcomes comes down to a single signature in Washington and a few morning hours.
Should a possible shutdown at the Pancevo refinery worry consumers as well, or is this a risk that stays within the bounds of corporate business?
