US extends sanctions waiver of Serbia oil firm

The US has extended a temporary sanctions waiver for a Serbian oil firm, to allow more time for negotiations over the sale of its Russian-held stake, officials said Wednesday. 

Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) has faced US sanctions since January 2025 as part of a crackdown on the Russian energy sector following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Washington is demanding that Gazprom Neft and its sister company, Intelligence, both subsidiaries of Russian energy giant Gazprom, sell their combined 56 percent stake as a condition for lifting sanctions.

The company has for months been negotiating a sale of the stake with Hungary's energy giant MOL, with the US repeatedly extending sanction waivers during the process.

The latest waiver granted by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control was due to expire at midnight on Wednesday.

"We have just been informed by OFAC that the operating license to resume work at NIS has been extended for another 30 days, until July 31," Serbia's Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic wrote on Instagram late Tuesday.

"The refinery in Pancevo continues to process crude oil, which is particularly significant in the global energy crisis," she said, referring to the country's sole oil-processing facility.

MOL on Wednesday confirmed that its licence to negotiate had also been extended until July 31.

Serbia remains a close Kremlin ally and one of the few European countries not to sanction Russia over its war against Ukraine.

The Balkan nation sold a majority stake in NIS to Gazprom in 2008 for 400 million euros ($457 million), and now owns around 30 percent.

Officials say Serbia intends to raise its stake by five percent after the sale.

Earlier this month, MOL and the Serbian government said they had signed a shareholders' agreement regarding NIS's future governance if the deal with Russians is reached and approved by OFAC.