No diesel for 11 days as Serbia taps fuel reserves

The licence issued by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to NIS and Hungary’s MOL has been extended by 28 days, until August 28, 2026. That deadline has been known since last week. What Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on July 31 to a television station in Nis, and repeated on August 1 in the village of Vasilj near Knjazevac, concerns something the calendar does not show: there is physically no diesel on the quotation market.

“It is good that we got another 28 days, another four weeks, but this shows that this is the final deadline for it to be resolved,” the president said.

The market description that followed is more concrete than any assessment of the deadline:

“We are looking for quotations in Constanta, for the next 11 days you cannot buy a litre, you cannot buy a kilo of diesel. There is none. There is none in the Mediterranean.”

Constanta is a Romanian port on the Black Sea and one of the entry points for fuel that reaches Serbia along the Danube. Vucic added that the river is still navigable, but that low water levels force smaller loads per vessel, so the same volume takes more trips.

What does an empty quotation market mean?

A quotation is the price at which a given volume of fuel is contracted for delivery in a set window. When there is no offer for the next 11 days, a buyer cannot close a deal even by paying more, because the cargo for that window does not exist. For a country whose domestic refining does not cover full consumption, short term supply then depends on what is already inside the borders: the stock at the refinery in Pancevo, commercial inventories held by traders, and state reserves.

That is where the president’s second point comes in, and it explains what the state has been doing over the past weeks.

“We released from operational reserves so they would not export it to the region, so they have to buy from NIS and some other companies. We are protecting our state reserves, and we will supply them”

The distinction he draws is between operational reserves, which were released onto the market, and state reserves, which he says are being held back. The motive he cites is export: fuel bought in Serbia below regional prices pays to resell across the border, and releasing operational reserves spoils that arithmetic.

Excise duties cut until August 9

On July 31 the government extended the 20 percent reduction in excise duties on petroleum products until August 9. The previous decision ran only to August 2. The reduced rates are:

• 61.24 dinars per litre for leaded petrol
• 57.60 dinars per litre for unleaded petrol
• 59.23 dinars per litre for gas oils

Full statutory excise stands at 76.55 dinars for leaded petrol, 72 dinars for unleaded and 74.04 dinars for diesel. On diesel the gap is 14.81 dinars per litre, and that is what the state gives up to keep the pump price where it is. Until August 9 eurodiesel sells at 226 dinars and BMB 95 at 202 dinars per litre.

The 20 percent ceiling is on its way out

The Finance Ministry is drafting amendments to the Excise Duties Act that delete the rule capping any cut at 20 percent. Consultations on the draft ran from July 23 to July 30, 2026, and the change targets Article 17, along with wording on how dinar amounts track the annual consumer price index.

Spring showed why the ceiling was a problem. Between April 10 and May 15, 2026 the state cut excise duties by 25 percent, above the statutory limit, and had to route the move through the Regulation on the control of petroleum product prices because the Excise Duties Act did not allow it. Once Article 17 changes, that workaround becomes unnecessary and the tool for holding the pump price gets deeper than it was in April.

A phone call before August 28

The talks the president refers to concern the sale of the Russian majority stake in NIS to MOL. Vucic says he intends to join them himself.

“And as I said, I hope that in the next seven to 10 days I will speak by phone with both the Hungarian prime minister and the Russian president”

In the village of Vasilj near Knjazevac, standing by a mobile clinic, he put it more briefly: “I hope we finish it, but the quotation market is hell”.

In late July we reported the OFAC licence extension to August 28, and back then that was the only date in the story. Now there are three: August 9, when the excise cut lapses, the seven to ten day window for the phone calls, and August 28. If ownership is not settled by then, Washington’s next decision will not be about how long the licence runs, but about whether there is one at all.