Russian owner of Serbia's NIS ready to transfer control of company to third party - Serbian Energy Ministry
MOSCOW. Nov 11 (Interfax) - Gazprom Neft , the Russian owner of Serbia's Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), has submitted a request to the United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to extend the company's operating license based on negotiations with a third party, Serbia's RTS TV reported, citing Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic-Handanovic.
Djedovic-Handanovic said that the Russian side is prepared to transfer influence and control over NIS to a third party.
Serbia has officially supported the request, OFAC has already responded with certain comments, and NIS hopes that OFAC will present its position within a week, Djedovic-Handanovic said.
As reported, NIS, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, was included in the U.S. the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List in early 2025. In that regard, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the United States demanded full withdrawal of Russian capital from it. Meantime, he said that the Serbian government had transferred NIS under the control of Gazprom Neft in 2008, and the company had contributed to the generation of considerable revenues of the Serbian budget in the past years and had contributed to the development of many projects.
The main co-owners are currently Gazprom Neft (44.85%) and the Serbian authorities (29.87%), another 11.3% of the shares in NIS belong to the joint stock company Intelligence (operated by Gazprom Capital), where financial investments of Gazprom Group are also concentrated. Gazprom directly owns one share in NIS, and the Serbian company also has minority shareholders.
NIS is the only company in Serbia that explores and extracts hydrocarbons. It also owns a large oil refinery in the city of Pancevo. The company dominates the petroleum products market of its country, its fuel station chain is also present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Romania, comprising 400 stations.
