Serbian oil company NIS, which is under US sanctions as it is owned by Russia's “Gazprom“, has been exempted from them for a period of three months, Reuters reported, citing a Serbian government official, BTA reported.
The US imposed sanctions on NIS in January, but their implementation was postponed several times and they did not come into force until October 8.
NIS is the operator of Serbia's only oil refinery, which is located in Pančevo near the Serbian capital Belgrade. The facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tons and covers most of the country's needs. The state owns 29.9 percent of NIS's shares, while the main owner remains “Gazprom Neft“ by 44.9 percent. At the end of September, the St. Petersburg-based company “Intelligence“, affiliated with “Gazprom“, acquired a stake of 11.3 percent.
Earlier this week, Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Džedović Handanović announced that the Russian owners of NIS had sent a request to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency of the US Treasury Department, to extend the company's operating license, arguing that they were negotiating to transfer control of NIS to a third party.