Sanctioned Serbian oil refinery resumes production

BELGRADE: Serbia’s sole refinery, majority owned by Russian companies, resumed its work on Sunday due to a temporary reprieve from sanctions targeting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Serbia’s energy minister said.

Washington’s sanctions on the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), part of its crackdown on Russia’s energy sector, forced the shutdown in early December of the refinery, which supplies around 80 percent of the Balkan country’s fuel needs.

But on December 31, the United States granted NIS a temporary sanctions reprieve.

NIS has obtained a licence from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) allowing it to continue operations until January 23, as well as a license to negotiate the sale until March 24. “After almost two months’ break, today the production of oil derivatives in the Pancevo refinery has started,” Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said on Instagram.