US sanctions on NIS begin October 1

(Patria) - Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stated today that the US has postponed sanctions on Naftna industrija Srbije (NIS) for another four days, meaning they will be imposed starting October 1st.

The US placed Serbia's largest oil company on the sanctions list on January 10th due to so-called "secondary risk" owing to the company's majority Russian ownership in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sanctions on NIS have been postponed six times so far, most recently until September 26th. Serbian authorities have been negotiating with both the Russian and American sides in the meantime.

- We have been extremely fair to our Russian partners and our American partners, and we will strive to remain fair, but people must know that we will have to pay an extremely high price - Vučić said in an address to Serbian media in New York, where he is participating in the UN General Assembly session.

Vučić claimed that Serbia is "collateral damage from the relations between Americans and Russians," stating: "A difficult time and a hard winter certainly await us".

Meanwhile, NIS's ownership structure has changed several times. Russian company Gazprom exited NIS's ownership in September, and another company managed by Gazprom, Intelligence from Saint Petersburg, became one of the significant owners.

Joint-stock company Intelligence became the owner of an 11.3 percent stake in the company, according to data published on the Belgrade Stock Exchange website on September 21st.

Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary of Gazprom (44.9 percent), still holds the largest stake in NIS, while the state of Serbia holds 29.9 percent. The remaining stake consists of small shareholders.

As early as January, Vučić rejected the possibility of nationalizing NIS, emphasizing that Serbia "will not participate in the confiscation of Russian property".

NIS representatives announced in August that the company operated at a loss of 3.6 billion dinars (30 million euros) at the end of the first half of the year, partly due to US sanctions, but also due to falling oil prices on the world market.

NIS is, incidentally, the only company in Serbia engaged in oil exploration, production, and refining, as well as natural gas production. It was majority state-owned until 2008 when Serbia sold a 51 percent stake in NIS to Gazprom Neft for 400 million euros.