NIS License Final Day: OFAC Stays Silent

The special operating license issued to Naftna Industrija Srbije by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) expires on July 1, 2026, and as of today, June 30, the company has still not received a reply to its new request to continue operating. The authorization is what allows NIS to refine oil, import crude and clear financial settlements, in other words the legal basis without which the refinery in Pancevo cannot function in its normal mode.

NIS submitted a fresh request to OFAC for permission to operate past July 1, but Washington had not responded as of this writing. Silence right before the deadline is not the procedure the company would prefer: OFAC issued the previous extensions at the last moment, leaving uncertainty as a fixture of the business calendar since last October, when the United States imposed sanctions on NIS over its majority Russian ownership. The sanctions took effect on October 9, 2025, and since then NIS has operated from one temporary permit to the next.

What happens if the license is not renewed?

The Serbian government is looking for an answer to that risk in reserves. The ban on exporting oil and petroleum products has been extended to July 2, 2026, with the aim of shielding domestic supply from any market disruption. At the same time, four storage tanks with a combined capacity of 67,000 tonnes of fuel were placed into trial operation in Smederevo, strengthening the state’s operating reserves. The refinery in Pancevo continues to run, and supply to fuel stations is orderly for now.

The picture on the ground, however, comes with a caveat. Station owners confirm that fuel is available, but with a recurring qualifier: nobody knows for how long. That statement captures the nature of the current situation precisely, where physical reserves exist but the legal framework for buying new volumes hangs on a single signature in Washington. For the consumer it means no visible change at the pump for now, while the supply chain for the coming weeks is being decided in the background.

Ownership structure as the key to a solution

A permanent lifting of the sanctions is tied to a change in the ownership structure. Negotiations between Gazprom Neft, the Russian majority shareholder, and Hungary’s MOL over the transfer of a 56.15% stake have not yet been concluded with a signature, and the deadline for MOL is also July 1. As long as Russian capital remains in ownership, OFAC has no basis to regulate the company’s status permanently, so the entire system relies on temporary licenses renewed month by month.

For NIS, which supplies most of the domestic market with petroleum products, this is a question of business continuity, not merely a formality. Every day without a valid license raises operating risk, from importing feedstock to settling obligations with suppliers. The government is buying time through reserves, but that time is not unlimited: without a renewed license or a completed ownership transfer, the room to maneuver narrows to weeks, not months.

Will Washington move before the clock strikes the final hour of the license, or will NIS start the day with no legal basis to operate?