BELGRADE (Reuters) -U.S. sanctions on Serbia’s Russian-owned NIS oil company that were supposed to take effect on October 1 will be postponed for eight days, Tanjug news agency reported, quoting President Aleksandar Vucic.
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.
Following a series of waivers since then, on Friday the United States said sanctions would be imposed as of October 1.
“They (the U.S.) wanted to show respect and to tell us they understand Serbia’s position,” Vucic was quoted as saying in Obrenovac. “But in seven days I will still have no answer.
He said that Serbia could have “something to offer.”
“Whether that will be enough, and whether it would be what Americans want, we will see,” he said.
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 of Belgrade.
Gazprom Neft transferred a stake of around 5.15% in NIS to Gazprom on February 26 in an attempt to ward off sanctions.
The Pancevo facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tons and covers most of the Balkan country’s needs, and sanctions could jeopardise its supply of crude via Croatia’s Janaf.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Alistair Bell and Diane Craft)
