BELGRADE (Reuters) -Serbia has secured a fifth postponement of planned U.S. sanctions against Russian-owned oil firm NIS, which operates the country’s only oil refinery, Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said on Monday.
The postponement would be a month long, and a longer extension was not possible, she said in a written statement.
“Our top priority is to maintain a stable supply of oil derivatives, and … to remove NIS from OFAC sanctions list. The most important factor for that is progress in the dialogue between the U.S. and Russia,” Djedovic Handanovic said.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control initially placed sanctions on Russia’s oil sector on January 10, and gave Gazprom Neft 45 days to exit ownership of NIS.
The U.S. Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Thursday, Belgrade sought an additional 180-day postponement from the U.S.
NIS – in which Gazprom Neft owns a 44.9% stake, Gazprom 11.3%, and the Serbian government 29.9% – operates Serbia’s sole refinery, in the town of Pancevo, just outside Belgrade.
The facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tons and covers most of the Balkan country’s needs. Sanctions could jeopardise its supplies of crude.
Serbia sold a 51% stake in NIS to Gazprom in 2008 for 400 million euros ($464 million).
On February 26, Gazprom Neft transferred a stake of around 5.15% in NIS to Gazprom in an attempt to ward off sanctions.
NIS imports about 80% of its oil needs through Croatia’s pipeline operator Janaf. The remainder is covered by its crude oil production in Serbia.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic, Robert Harvey and Richard Valdmanis; editing by Mark Heinrich, Jan Harvey, Rod Nickel)
