After prolonged negotiations triggered by US sanctions, the Russian-controlled stake in Serbia’s oil company NIS has been transferred, Serbian daily Politika reported. The move follows months of uncertainty surrounding the company’s ownership and operations.
A total of 56.15% previously held by Russian interests has been sold to Hungary’s MOL, while a portion of the shares is expected to be taken over by investors from the United Arab Emirates. At the same time, the Serbian state will expand its own participation in the company. According to Serbia’s Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Džedović Handanović, MOL and Russia’s Gazprom have already agreed on the key terms of the transaction, which will now be submitted to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for approval. During the talks, Serbia succeeded in increasing its stake by five percentage points.
Handanović underlined that this represents a significant improvement compared to the original 2008 deal, when Serbia’s holding remained below 30%. With the additional shares, the state will gain stronger voting rights at the General Meeting of Shareholders, allowing it to play a more active role in strategic decisions and better safeguard public interests. She also confirmed that partners from the UAE are expected to be included in the final ownership structure.
Sanctions against NIS were imposed by OFAC on October 9 due to the presence of Gazprom Neft in the company’s ownership. Washington stated that the measures were intended to prevent Russia from financing its war in Ukraine through energy revenues. The US position has been that NIS can only be removed from the sanctions list if Russian participation is fully eliminated.
As a result of the embargo and restrictions on crude oil imports, the Pančevo refinery, Serbia’s only refinery and NIS’s most valuable asset, was shut down on December 2. On January 1, the company announced that it had received a special license from the US Treasury, allowing production to resume by January 23.
NIS was originally sold to Gazprom in January 2008 under an intergovernmental agreement between Serbia and Russia for 400 million euros, equivalent to approximately 783 million leva. There is currently no official assessment of the present market value of the Russian stake that has now been sold.