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According to President Alexander Vicic, Serbia faces losing access to oil imports on Friday as consultations aimed at preventing the country’s only oil refinery from being imposed on the US’s only oil refinery failed to break the deadlock on the country’s only oil refinery.
The US Treasury Department is asking Russian state-owned Gazprom and its subsidiary Gazprom Neft to sell a majority stake in Serbian refinery NIS as part of an effort to “target Russia’s major revenue streams” or as part of an effort to face sanctions.
The extension deadline for Russian owners to sell from the NIS expired Friday, with Vicic saying they are not expecting a last-minute deal to avoid the crisis.
Most of Serbia’s rough imports arrive via pipelines owned by Janaf in Croatia.
“We’ve been talking to Americans, Russians, everyone about finding a solution,” Vicic told the Financial Times. “There was no change in America’s attitude.”
He admitted on Friday that “I don’t know if Janav will stop oil remittances,” and that Serbia’s need (with a reserve of about 80 days) requires the transaction to be made.
Janav told the FT that he requested a 90-day license from the US to enforce the contract with the Serbian refinery. “(We want positive outcomes) that will allow us to fulfill our contractual obligations to the NIS,” he said in an emailed response to the question.
The Serbian president has maintained his working ties with the Kremlin and refused to participate in EU sanctions against Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
But Vicic has also been under pressure from the country, with decades of protest culminating at a massive rally in Belgrade this month, showing that hundreds of thousands of Serbs are opposed to the perceived corruption and failure of his government.
The Russian owners have refused to sell a combined 56% stake in the NIS, but they shuffled the ownership structure so that neither Gazprom nor Gazprom Neft holds a majority in the refinery.
“The attitude in Russia is that they want to keep it at any price,” Vicicz said. He previously ruled out nationalisation of NIS or Russian stocks as a way to avoid sanctions, and refused to discuss strategies on how to ease the situation.
“Finally, we need to have a completely safe oil market in our country. This means we will fully supply oil to refineries and gasoline markets,” he said.
According to industry figures, one possible solution is for Hungarian oil group Mol to step in and buy Russian stocks in the NIS. Mole refused to discuss the issue. Vicic said he was unable to raise him on a call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday.
Hungarian Foreign Minister was in Moscow at the same time discussing the issue of energy with the Russian government along with Mole’s Chairman Zsolt Hernádi, but Vučić said he was unaware whether the NIS was on their agenda.
The NIS issue was asked to some extent in part of the broader Russian debate in the context of ending wars in Ukraine, Vicic said: “I think it’s a small problem for them.”
He added: “If sanctions are enforced, we must see the response from the Russian side as quickly as possible, and then we must respond as well.”
