Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said on November 25 that Serbia has four more days until the refinery's operation is completely halted if the United States does not approve the operating license for the Serbian Oil Industry (NIS).
"The NIS refinery is operating, it has not been shut down yet," Vučić said.
On November 18, NIS requested a special license from the US to continue operating while negotiations between shareholders and interested parties continue on changing the company's ownership structure.
Vučić said that Serbia was expected to receive this license, “but there are other things that they [the US] need to hear and see” in order to approve the license.
He said that in the event of a refinery shutdown, it takes 20 days to get it back up and running.
"We have done everything our Russian friends have told us and we have been put in a very difficult situation," Vucic said.
"We still have today and tomorrow to get the license," he added.
The Serbian President said that there were rumors in the Government that NIS should be nationalized, but his proposal, which was approved, was to give another 50 days to find a new buyer for NIS.
He said that the interruption of the refinery's work would "put at risk the functioning of the health and emergency systems," as well as the supply of trade chains and the functioning of the transportation system.
Vučić also said that the National Bank of Serbia has received warnings, as have commercial banks in Serbia, about secondary sanctions due to cooperation with NIS.
"We are putting both commercial banks and the People's Bank at risk. I personally have received verbal guarantees from the Americans that there will be no such sanctions on the banks," he said.
Vucic had stated earlier in November that the Russian owners were negotiating the sale of their shares in NIS with three partners, but had not indicated who they were.
The US sanctions on NIS came into effect on October 9th, as part of the US administration's effort to prevent Russia from using energy revenues to finance the war in Ukraine. The sanctions had previously been extended eight times.
The Serbian state in 2008 sold 51 percent of NIS shares to the Russian state-owned company Gazprom Neft for 400 million euros, without a tender.
Meanwhile, the ownership structure of NIS has been changed several times, but it continues to be majority owned by Russian companies, while Serbia has 29.87 percent of the shares.
NIS is the only company in Serbia engaged in oil exploration, production and processing, as well as natural gas production.
Serbia is the only country in Europe, along with Belarus, that has not joined the European Union's sanctions against Russia following its invasion of neighboring Ukraine./REL
