MOL Gets OFAC Clearance to Negotiate NIS Stake

The same date, July 31, 2026, now closes two separate processes around Serbia’s national oil company (NIS): the U.S. OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) approval to continue talks, and the operating license under which the company runs. Hungary’s MOL has secured Washington’s clearance to negotiate with Gazprom Neft over the purchase of the Russian stake in NIS, opening for the first time a realistic path for the Russian owner to exit the Serbian oil company.

The overlap of the two deadlines is not a formality. Approval to negotiate is worth little if the transaction is not closed before the permit that lets NIS import crude, sell fuels and serve foreign partners lapses. The refinery in Pancevo, the country’s only large processing unit, depends on that license for continuity of supply.

Two deadlines on the same day

Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said the state is closely watching the talks between MOL and the majority Russian owners, but that the outcome, along with any decisions by the U.S. administration, does not rest with Belgrade. Her message amounts to this: Serbia’s part of the job, as far as potential cooperation with MOL is concerned, is done.

Ownership structure is the core of the problem. Gazprom Neft and related Russian shareholders hold the majority stake in NIS, and that stake is precisely what draws the U.S. sanctions that placed NIS on the restrictions list. As long as the Russian owner stays in the company, the operating license behaves like a temporary measure renewed from deadline to deadline rather than a durable fix. A buyout by MOL would be the first mechanism to remove that uncertainty at the root.

For MOL, the acquisition would mean expanding refining and retail capacity in a market it already knows well through its regional network. For Gazprom Neft, a sale would be a controlled exit from an asset it cannot monetize under sanctions anyway. For Serbia, an ownership change that lifts NIS off the sanctions list would mean steadier crude imports and a more predictable refinery in Pancevo.

What happens if no deal lands by July 31?

This is a question the ministry clearly does not leave to chance. If the transaction is not closed and the license is not renewed, NIS would fall into an operating gap: talks approved, but the company without a permit for normal work. That is why the ministry places stronger commodity reserves and a stable market supply above the outcome of the negotiations themselves.

There are, in essence, three scenarios. The first is that MOL and Gazprom Neft close a deal before the deadline, resolving the ownership problem and stripping the license of its temporary character. The second is a fresh extension of both the approval and the license, carrying the uncertainty into the next cycle. The third, and least favorable, is that neither a deal nor an extension arrives in time, in which case the burden would fall on state reserves and alternative supply channels.

The July 31 deadline therefore works as a double test: for the negotiators who need to close the deal, and for the state that must keep the pumps and the refinery running whatever the talks produce. The economic stake is plain, an entire fuel market hinges on a document with an expiry date.

Will the ownership knot around NIS be untied before the last deadline runs out, or is another extension waiting?