Gazprom Neft’s deal to sell its stake in Serbia’s only refinery will be beneficial for Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
On Monday, Hungarian oil company MOL Group signed a binding heads of agreement with Russia’s Gazprom Neft to buy its 56.15% stake in Serbia’s only refinery Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), following months of talks and waivers from the U.S. for negotiations to proceed.
NIS operates Serbia’s only refinery in Pancevo, which supplies about 80% of Serbia’s gasoline and diesel and more than 90% of jet fuel and heavy fuel oil.
Gazprom Neft and Gazprom affiliates currently hold a majority stake in NIS, with the Serbian state owning the remaining 29.9%.
The U.S. has waived the sanctions against NIS several times since it included it in the sanctions on Russia’s oil industry in January last year. The sanctions on the Russia-owned refinery in Serbia came into effect in early October as the last waiver expired.
In November, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a license until February 13, 2026, which only authorized negotiations between shareholders and other interested parties regarding changes in NIS’s ownership structure.
Due to the sanctions on other operations except negotiations of a sale, the refinery was forced to shut down in early December.
Since the last waiver expired on October 8, banks have stopped processing NIS-related payments and Croatia’s JANAF pipeline has halted deliveries of crude oil to the refinery. The JANAF pipeline from Croatia had been Serbia’s primary supply line for Russian and Kazakh crude since 2022.
MOL’s agreement to buy Gazprom Neft’s stake in NIS is conditional, among other closing conditions, on the approval of OFAC and other governmental and state approvals in Serbia.
MOL and Gazprom Neft’s aim to sign a definitive sales and purchase agreement by March 31, 2026, the Hungarian company said on Monday.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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