The Serbian government has set up a coordination body to ensure oil and gas supplies in the event of US sanctions against the Serbian Oil Industry (SOI). The biggest Russian gas and oil company Gazprom holds a considerable number of SOI.
This body will direct and coordinate the work and activities of work groups to monitor the activities of the US Treasury Department and to negotiate an agreement on the supply and delivery of natural gas from Russia to Serbia.
The Russian state-owned Gazprom Neft and its parent company Gazprom have held a majority stake of 56.15% in NIS since 2008, while Serbia owns 29.87%.
Earlier, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that he expected sanctions against NIS due to Russian ownership to be adopted in the near future.
At the time, he said that he was negotiating with Russia to buy out Gazprom’s stake in the company so that it would not fall under US restrictions.
Despite the attempts to diversify its energy supply sources since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Serbia remains largely dependent on Russia for energy.