NIS Gets 30 More Days: US License Runs to August 28

The operating license of Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) has been extended by 30 days, until August 28, 2026. The decision came from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The previous permit ran only through July 31, so the extension landed on the day it lapsed.

Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic announced it late on July 31, speaking from Ohrid. The new license allows the refinery in Pancevo to keep operating and processing crude.

Thirty days is certainly good news, because in that period NIS can procure and deliver sufficient quantities of crude oil

The minister added that the window is short and that the underlying problem has simply been pushed forward:

What is not good is that the uncertainty is still there, it has lasted 18 months already and it is giving us major headaches

MOL and JANAF cleared to the same date

The decision did not stop at the Serbian company. Two more firms in the chain that keeps the Pancevo refinery running received the August 28 deadline:

• Hungary’s MOL, so it can continue talks with Gazprom Neft on taking over the Russian stake in NIS
• Croatia’s JANAF, for transporting oil to NIS

The JANAF clearance is what makes the rest workable, because the crude reaches Pancevo through that pipeline. Without it the extended license would be a permit to refine oil that never arrives.

Why NIS is under US sanctions

Washington imposed sanctions on NIS on January 10, 2025, over its majority Russian ownership, held by Gazprom Neft. Enforcement was then postponed eight times, and the measures took effect on October 9, 2025, when a ninth deferral was refused.

That is where the minister’s arithmetic comes from. The 18 months of uncertainty are counted from January 2025, when the sanctions were imposed, not from October, when they began to bite. Since then NIS has been running on temporary permits issued in short intervals, which puts the company’s planning on a monthly clock.

What has to be settled by August 28

The 30 day window is a logistics window before it is a legal one. NIS has to contract, pay for and ship in enough crude, and that is not a single transaction but a chain involving a foreign carrier and a foreign bank, both sitting under the same regulatory scrutiny.

The MOL and Gazprom Neft negotiations run in parallel. A durable answer on the status of NIS will not come out of Washington but out of the shareholder register: while the Russian stake stays where it is, the license remains a renewable, and revocable, arrangement.

The cost of that wait already shows up in the numbers. In an earlier piece on the company’s results we reported a 14% drop in retail fuel sales, and retail is the part of the business that reacts fastest to any doubt about supply. Every fresh 30 day cycle refreshes that doubt, among suppliers and among drivers at the pumps.

The next date on the calendar is August 28. Two outcomes sit on the table until then: another temporary license, of which there have been several, or a closed ownership deal that would make the permit question moot.