The General Director of Srbijagas, Dušan Bajatović, stated on that he expects the deadline for the implementation of U.S. sanctions on the Serbian Oil Industry (NIS) to be extended once again, possibly by up to 30 days.
The U.S. administration imposed sanctions on NIS in January due to its majority Russian ownership, with the sanctions scheduled to take effect on Friday unless NIS’s request for a second extension, supported by the Serbian government, is granted.
“There will be another delay in the sanctions, and that’s good for Serbia, but we can’t expect more than 30 days, just like the first time, because that’s the bureaucracy. They (the U.S.) know what can be done in 40-45 days… NIS covers 80% of the market in Serbia, and it’s hard to replace that with imports from other countries,” Bajatović said.
Bajatović also mentioned that after the change in ownership structure at NIS, the company should be removed from the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list and the sanctions procedure should begin, but that may not be the case.
“If you read the sanctions document from the U.S. regulator OFAC, we have changed the ownership structure of NIS, and Gazprom now owns 11%, while Gazpromneft, which is under sanctions, holds around 46%. The state of Serbia owns nearly 30%, and the rest are small shareholders,” Bajatović explained.
He emphasized that the sanctions against NIS are political and were imposed by the administration of former President Joseph Biden in its final actions to, as he put it, hinder one of the main goals of current President Donald Trump to establish peace.
Bajatović further stated that NIS has oil reserves at least until September, and ways will be found to overcome any difficulties, though he warned that the real problem would be the outflow of foreign currency from the National Bank of Serbia if fuel imports are required.
“I don’t want to think that anyone would want to punish the Serbian people to that extent, who are not to blame. We will have the logistical and other means to overcome this crisis. There won’t be any shortages, we have reserves, money, and everything else, but instead of storing foreign currency in the National Bank of Serbia, we will be sending our foreign currency to another country and helping their economy if we have to import fuel derivatives,” Bajatović concluded.
