Serbia's NIS refinery switches to reduced circulation mode amid oil shortages - President Vucic
MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Serbia's Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) refinery, part of Gazprom Neft , has switched to reduced circulation mode amid oil shortages owing to U.S. sanctions, Serbian media quoted President Aleksandar Vucic as saying.
"The refinery has not been shut down. It has switched to circulation mode, which is a lower operating mode than usual," Vucic said.
The refinery will shut down completely in four days unless the United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) renews the license, Vucic said.
NIS last week said that it had submitted a new request to OFAC for a special license that would ensure the company's unimpeded operation while shareholders negotiate NIS' future.
OFAC previously issued a license valid until February 13, 2026, which approved negotiations between shareholders and other interested parties regarding changes to NIS' ownership structure.
Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic-Handanovic said that Russian owners had agreed to sell their 56.15% stake in NIS. "The name of the third party is not being disclosed, as these are business negotiations between serious companies."
Djedovic-Handanovic also said that the Russian owners of Serbia's NIS, Gazprom Neft, had submitted a request to extend the company's operating license based on negotiations with the third party. The minister said that the Russian side is prepared to transfer influence and control over NIS to a third party.
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 in the country, and its fuel station chain is present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Romania, comprising 400 stations.
