President Aleksandar Vucic stated yesterday that Serbia will wait another 50 days for Russia to find a buyer for the Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), and that if that does not happen, it will introduce its own management into that company. “We wish the Russian side success in that job and we are not interfering in the choice (of buyer). We would have liked it if they had offered it to us, but we respect the decision that it should be someone else, because it is the right of the owner to manage their capital. Even after that, we do not want to nationalize it, but if after 50 days it does not come to the sale of NIS, we have no choice, and we will have to introduce our own management and pay our Russian friends the highest possible price,” Vucic said at a press conference in the Presidency of Serbia.
He said that “there is no great philosophy in that” and no other solution, and he called on everyone to tell him that solution if they know it. Vucic said that Serbia wants to be fair toward the Russian side and give it time to sell its property or to reach an agreement with the United States (U.S.) side.
“We want to show how much we care about friendship, and we did not introduce forced administration as in Bulgaria and Romania. We want to give them those 50 days, and even then, we will not go for nationalization; we will give them even more money than they asked from the partner. And we will pay everything immediately, because our long-term relations will not depend on this or that action within NIS,” Vucic said. He added that he did not ask the Russian side why it did not offer the property in NIS to Serbia first, nor will he do so. “That will not spoil our relationship with our Russian friends, except that it builds our historical memory,” he said.
The NIS refinery has not yet been shut down, but has switched to “silent mode”
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday in an extraordinary address to the public that the refinery of NIS has not yet been shut down, but has shifted to a lower level of operation, that is, a “silent mode,” and added that “we have four more days until the complete stoppage of the refinery if we do not receive a licence from the U.S. OFAC.”
“We want to inform you that the NIS refinery is in the technological process of the so-called hot circulation or, to translate it, in a kind of silent mode, it is not yet closed, it has not yet been shut down, but it is already a lower level of operation compared to the usual,” Vucic said at the conference in Belgrade. As he said, “we have four more days until the complete stoppage of the refinery if there is no approval of the licence from the U.S. OFAC or the U.S. government.”
If the licence is not extended, the health system, supply chains, production of all key resources, and life in Serbia will be endangered, Vucic said.
He said he was addressing the public “because we are facing great problems.” “Today or tomorrow we may be able to change something, if Thursday comes, then the refinery stops,” Vucic added.
NIS submitted on November 18th a new request to the OFAC of the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the issuance of a special licence enabling the unimpeded operation of the company. With the previous licence from November 14th, valid until February 13th, 2026, negotiations of shareholders and other interested parties on the change of the ownership structure of NIS were approved.
The U.S. imposed sanctions on NIS because of its majority Russian ownership on October 9th.
