The NIS company logo in Belgrade, October 2025. Photo: EPA/ANDREJ CUKIC
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that his government backs his proposal to give Russian companies Gazprom and Gazprom Neft a 50-day deadline to find a buyer for their holdings in Serbia’s mainly Russian-owned oil company NIS.
The US sanctioned NIS in January 2025, and, after a few waivers, the sanctions took effect on the company in October. Serbia is hoping that a quick sell-off by the Russians will ensure continued fuel supplies as winter sets in.
“After 50 days, if no purchase agreement is reached, we have no choice… but even then we will not nationalise immediately. Instead, we will introduce our own management, and then we will offer the highest possible price and pay the highest possible price to our Russian friends,” Vucic told a press conference.
He also said he wants the US Treasury to grant an operational licence to NIS within the next two days. This would allow the import of oil through the Croatian oil pipeline operator, Jadranski Naftovod, JANAF, which, until the introduction of sanctions, had been Serbia’s main oil supply route.
“I call on the government of the United States to give us the licence. We need that licence in the next 48 hours, for a period of 50 days. That is my plea and that is my request to the Americans,” Vucic said.
Vucic added that Serbia probably knows only some of the entities involved in negotiations to buy the holdings in NIS from the Russians, but mentioned “friends from the UAE, Hungary, and some other countries”. But he expressed regret that the Russians did not offer Serbia the chance to buy a majority share in NIS.
“We wish every success to the Russian side in this. We are not interfering in their choice. We would have liked them to offer it to us first. We understood that they chose someone else, and we have no problem with that, we respect it. It is the right of the owner to manage their capital and their property,” Vucic said.
Vucic added that the Serbian National Bank and private banks in Serbia have received a warning “that they could become subject to sanctions” if they continue doing business with NIS.
“That means there could be a complete halt of payment operations and services for the population, cessation of the functioning of payment cards, an end to issuing loans, and everything else,” Vucic said.
The National Bank later published a press release stating that it will halt payment operations with NIS if the company does not receive a licence to operate by the designated deadline, “in accordance with the President’s announcement”.
“If the company NIS does not receive an operating licence by the designated deadline, it [the bank] will suspend payment operations with the company in order to ensure that the stability of the domestic financial system is not jeopardised in any way, and to ensure that payment operations in the country continue to function smoothly,” the statement said.
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, imposed measures against NIS as part of a package of sanctions against two of Russia’s most significant oil producers and exporters, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas as part of measures intended to reduce revenue used by Moscow to fund its war against Ukraine.
In January, when OFAC first ordered sanctions on NIS, Russia’s Gazprom owned 6.15 per cent of the company and Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary, owned another 50 per cent. Serbia owned just under 30 per cent, and other minority shareholders held just under 14 per cent.
In February, Gazprom increased its ownership to 11.3 per cent, and Gazprom Neft decreased its share to 44.9 per cent. On September 19, the Russian-owned company JSC Intelligence took control of 11.3 per cent of the ownership of Gazprom.
Serbia sold 51 per cent of NIS, its only oil company, to Gazprom in 2008 for what critics said was a bargain price of 400 million euros, plus a promised investment of 550 million.
