NIS Faces July 31 Deadline as Serbia Stockpiles Fuel
The OFAC licence for NIS expires on July 31 and the sale of the Russian stake to MOL is not yet closed. Serbia is racing to build storage and reserves before a possible refinery halt in Pancevo.
- OFAC extended the operating licence for NIS to July 31, 2026, keeping the Pancevo refinery running, importing crude and filling reserves through the summer.
- The sale of the 56.15% Russian stake held by Gazprom Neft to Hungary's MOL is not yet closed.
- Serbia is building six tanks with a combined capacity of 120,000 cubic metres, four for diesel and two for petrol.
- Strategic reserves are estimated at roughly one and a half to two months of consumption, against a European standard of 90 days.
The operating licence that lets NIS run, import crude and fill its reserves has been extended by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to July 31, 2026. That date is now the hard edge of the business calendar in Serbian energy: until then the Pancevo refinery works under its normal regime, and what comes after depends on a single transaction that has not yet closed.
The ownership deal driving everything is the sale of the 56.15 percent stake that Russia’s Gazprom Neft holds in NIS to Hungary’s MOL. The agreement is not signed. Gazprom Neft chief executive Alexander Dyukov has said the process is complex and needs more time, which means there is a real scenario in which the deadline expires before the ownership structure is cleared of a sanctioned shareholder. For a refinery that processes the equivalent of domestic fuel demand each year, every day of uncertainty feeds into working capital, feedstock procurement and delivery planning.
Why is the state stockpiling fuel right now?
The answer is logistics, not panic. While the sale plays out, the state is accelerating construction of six tanks with a combined capacity of 120,000 cubic metres, four earmarked for diesel and two for petrol. The aim is to build, ahead of a possible refinery halt, a buffer that buys time to supply the market from imports of finished products should domestic refining stop.
Here the numbers show the real gap. Strategic oil and product reserves in Serbia are estimated at roughly one and a half to two months of consumption. The standard the European Union enforces on member states is 90 days of net imports. The difference between Serbia’s stocks and that threshold is not cosmetic: it determines how long the market can function without the refinery before pressure reaches the pumps. The new tanks are an attempt to widen that margin before it is needed.
The feedstock chain complicates the picture further. NIS imports crude via Janaf, Croatia’s Adriatic pipeline, from the Omisalj terminal, at an average of around 28,000 barrels a day. That route is the only significant inflow of crude to Pancevo, so any disruption to ownership or payments that sanctions might trigger hits the filling of the pipe directly.
Who carries the cost of uncertainty
First in line is NIS itself, whose working capital suffers each month the deal stays open, because sanctions uncertainty raises the cost of financing and complicates contracting deliveries. Second is the budget, which funds tank construction and reserve building as insurance against a scenario that may never arrive. Third is the consumer: pump prices in Serbia are administratively adjusted, but a prolonged refining halt and costlier imports of finished products eventually enter the retail price.
Alexander Dyukov has made clear that the licence deadline and the pace of negotiations need not line up. If the deal does not close by the end of July, Serbia enters August with a refinery whose status is again an open question, and the only tangible defence will be exactly the fuel now being loaded into new tanks. Will 120,000 cubic metres and one and a half months of stock be a sufficient cushion if Pancevo stops, or is it only deferring a bill that arrives in the autumn?
