NIS License: Serbia Waits Until August 28, Djedovic Says

The deadline the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set for Serbia’s oil company NIS runs out in two days, on August 28, and Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said on August 26 that it won’t be known until the very last moment whether the special license allowing NIS to keep operating will be extended.

The minister summed up the question hanging over Washington’s decision in a single sentence.

The license for NIS will be waited on until the very last moment.

According to her, the Serbian side has already finished its part of the job. Serbia’s government earlier signed a shareholder agreement with Hungary’s MOL, under which MOL would take over majority ownership of NIS from Russia’s Gazpromneft. What’s still missing is the US administration’s approval for the banks that need to carry out the financial transaction itself.

Specifically, the banking institutions are seeking approval from the US administration to carry out their steps. They don’t want to take on any risk of possibly becoming the subject of secondary sanctions.

In other words, the banks don’t want to become the next target of US sanctions over dealings with a company that’s already on OFAC’s list. The existing special license that lets NIS operate at all expires on that same August 28, and NIS filed a new request with OFAC on August 21 for a license that would let the company keep running without interruption. That same day, August 28, is also when the license held by Croatia’s JANAF for transporting oil to NIS runs out, which means the same uncertainty hangs over the crude that reaches the refinery by that route.

Who’s negotiating over NIS’s fate

Sources don’t fully agree on who is actually involved in the outcome. According to B92 and Tanjug, the negotiations include the US administration, Russia, Gazpromneft and Hungary’s MOL. Sputnik, on the other hand, reports only that Washington’s approval is required for the deal with the MOL group, without naming the other parties. The minister said Serbia has good relations with everyone involved and that Belgrade is not the sticking point in that triangle.

Refinery at full capacity, Danube offers no relief

The refinery in Pancevo is currently processing 13,000 tons of crude oil a day, which the minister said is the highest processing volume in the past year. Importing crude by water, however, has gotten harder: because of record low water levels on the Danube, barges can currently bring in only about 20 percent of the usual monthly fuel import.

The minister also pointed to a figure covering the whole sanctions period: from January 2025, when OFAC first announced and imposed measures against NIS, through the end of August 2026, nothing has gone missing from the market, despite what she described as a large number of problems the country has had to deal with.

This isn’t the first time a decision like this has come down to the wire. Lukoil, another company in the region hit by US sanctions, already had its deadline extended, to September 19, while NIS is still waiting on a decision due just two days before its existing license runs out. The minister said that if the license doesn’t get extended, one scenario under consideration would have the refinery keep running for as long as possible, at reduced processing capacity, importing via JANAF from Omisalj, while officials work out how much fuel the market actually needs and how supply could be arranged through other companies.

She added that a question of this weight carries a political dimension too: Serbia’s president has said that, if necessary, he will personally hold further consultations with other heads of state, primarily Russian President Vladimir Putin or Hungary’s prime minister.

Until then, according to Djedovic Handanovic, the final word rests with the US administration, which she says has shown Serbia considerable understanding so far, though, as she herself admits, there’s no certainty the license will be extended.