Vucic: US will impose sanctions against Serbia's Russian owned NIS

Aleksandar Vucic, president of Serbia, announced on Thursday that the U.S. would impose sanctions on the Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS from October 1, which operates the country's only oil refinery.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury placed initial sanctions on Russia's petroleum sector on 10 January, and gave Gazprom a 45-day deadline to sell its NIS holdings.

The U.S. has now postponed sanctions six times since August, the last time from September 26 to August.

Vucic told the local media that sanctions would be imposed on NIS as of October 1. Vucic is currently in New York.

NIS, of which Gazprom owns 44.9%, Gazprom’s unit 11.3%, and the Serbian Government 29.9%, operates Serbia’s only refinery in Pancevo just outside Belgrade.

Gazprom Neft, in an effort to avoid sanctions, transferred to Gazprom a stake in NIS of approximately 5.15% on the 26th February.

"As the banks won't be allowed to cooperate with NIS, it will cause problems in terms of paying salaries and other expenses." Let's wait until October 1 and see if a miracle happens," Vucic said.

The Pancevo plant has an annual production capacity of 4.8 millions tons, which covers the bulk of the Balkan countries' needs. Sanctions could threaten its crude supply via Croatia's Janaf. (Reporting and editing by Aidan Lewis, Nia Williams, and Ivana Sekularac)

(source: Reuters)