OFAC clears the way for MOL’s talks to buy NIS, but Forbes Srbija reports negotiations with Gazprom have failed

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has cleared the way for the Hungarian company MOL to continue negotiations with Gazprom on buying shares in Naftna industrija Srbije (NIS), as Danas reports. The American approval comes after MOL reacted with a public statement on the progress of the process, which Nova.rs also confirms.

But the good news comes with a shadow: Forbes Srbija reports, citing a source close to the Serbian government and well acquainted with the situation, that the talks between MOL and Gazprom on the sale have practically failed. According to the same reporting, this is in open contradiction with the statement of Energy Minister Dubravka Đedović Handanović, who, announcing a one-month extension of NIS’s operating license, said that negotiations between MOL and Gazprom on the purchase transaction are continuing.

Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandar Bocan-Harchenko, has also spoken about the progress of the matter; as Danas reports, he described NIS as a “difficult problem,” underlining the weight of the crisis caused by U.S. sanctions on the oil company.

The context is dramatic: just a day earlier, on September 30, the deadline for the talks between MOL and Gazprom Neft expired, while OFAC gave NIS a new extension of its work license until October 30 — developments that have been widely reported. Meanwhile, Republican U.S. congressmen have asked the Treasury not to extend the exemptions for NIS any further, while former president Vučić has warned that he fears the coming winter because of energy supply uncertainty.

NIS is Serbia’s only refinery and central to the country’s supply of derivatives; the fate of the Russian-controlled shares will determine whether the company escapes full U.S. sanctions in the coming months.