BELGRADE: The United States has introduced sanctions against Serbia’s main oil supplier, which is controlled by Russia, the company said on Thursday.
Serbia almost entirely depends on Russian gas and oil supplies, which it receives mainly through pipelines in Croatia and other neighboring states.
The gas is then distributed by Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), which is majority-owned by Russia’s state oil monopoly Gazprom Neft.
Gazprom Neft also owns Serbia's only oil refinery.
NIS said Thursday it had failed to secure another postponement of the US sanctions, which could jeopardize its efforts to secure oil and gas deliveries in a longer term.
“The special license from the US Department of the Treasury, which enables unhindered operational business, has not yet been extended,” NIS said in a statement. It added that it has stored enough supplies to keep the operation moving for customers for a longer while.
It also said problems could occur at NIS gasoline stations with payment made by foreign bank cards but added that that cash payments would be accepted.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control originally placed sanctions on Russia’s oil sector on Jan. 10 and gave Gazprom Neft a deadline to exit ownership of NIS, which it didn’t do.
US officials have not commented.
Although formally seeking European Union membership, Serbia has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion in Ukraine, in part because of the crucial Russian gas deliveries.
The Serbia’s pro-Russian President Aleksandar Vucic is facing one of the biggest threats to more than a decade of his increasingly autocratic rule.
Protests have been held by university students and others following the collapse almost a year ago of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the country’s north that killed 16 people.
Many in Serbia believe rampant corruption and nepotism among state officials led to sloppy work on the building reconstruction, which was part of a wider railroad project with Chinese state companies.