NIS Awaits License, Lukoil Gets Extension to September 19
NIS's operating license expires August 28 and OFAC has not yet answered its new request. Lukoil's license was extended to September 19, while a diesel tanker now costs 6.5 million dinars.
Five days separate Serbia’s Petroleum Industry (NIS) from the expiration of the operating license issued to it by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The deadline lands on August 28, and the company filed a new request with OFAC for a special license that would let it keep working without interruption on August 21. Washington has not answered yet.
The same day NIS submitted its request, OFAC was also weighing decisions on Hungary’s MOL and Russia’s Lukoil. MOL had already received an extension on July 31 for its license to negotiate the purchase of Russia’s majority stake in NIS, and that license expires on the same date as NIS’s operating permit, August 28. Lukoil fared better: its operating license, which was due to expire on August 22, was extended on August 21 to September 19. Lukoil’s assets were estimated at around $22 billion in 2024.
US sanctions on NIS have been in place since October 9, 2025, imposed over the company’s majority Russian ownership, and every extension of its operations since then has depended on periodic licenses that OFAC issues for a set number of days or months at a time.
Diesel tanker price nearly doubles
The uncertainty around the license is already being felt on the ground. Srdjan Knezevic, owner of Knez Petrol, a company that accounts for around 30 percent of NIS’s sales volume, says supply is holding up for now, but at a much higher price.
We’re delivering fuel without any interruption, there are no supply problems whatsoever. The only thing is, it takes more money.
According to him, the price has gone up by nearly double.
A single diesel tanker now costs 6.5 million dinars, and it used to cost three to four million.
Knezevic also warns of a scenario in which NIS would lose the ability to import crude oil.
If NIS couldn’t import oil, there would be a collapse. The state would have to step in with its commodity reserves.
Tomislav Micovic, secretary general of the Association of Oil Companies of Serbia, confirms that the market’s fuel supply now rests almost entirely on a single company.
NIS’s operating license for continuing its work expires on August 28, and we’ve directed our entire supply chain toward NIS. Under these circumstances, a way needs to be created as soon as possible to make imports worthwhile.
Pump prices and the European market
A liter of Euro diesel in Serbia currently costs 231 dinars, and 95-octane gasoline costs 202 dinars. By comparison, the average diesel price in the European Union, taxes included, is 2.03 euros per liter.
Conditions on the global market aren’t working in favor of cheaper fuel even without the sanctions. The price of a barrel of Brent crude has crossed $95, and refining margins in Europe have hit a record 76.40 euros per barrel, driving up the cost of every delivery regardless of who the supplier is. Low water levels on the Danube are adding another obstacle: barges currently can’t bring fuel in, and the railway doesn’t have the capacity to carry the volumes that would normally travel by river.
The sanctions have already hit exports as well. Serbia’s exports of diesel and crude oil have been cut roughly in half, from a previous 3.3 million barrels a day to 1.6 million.
NIS announces higher refining output
While waiting on an answer from Washington, NIS has announced it will raise crude oil processing at its Pancevo refinery to around 13,000 tons a day, something we reported on in previous days. The higher output should ease pressure on imports, but its full effect depends on whether the company gets a new operating license at all after August 28.
Until then, the market is running on short timelines: five days for NIS, and twenty seven days for Lukoil.
