Serbia’s sole oil refinery is back at the US Treasury’s door, hat in hand, asking for permission to keep the lights on. NIS, formally known as Naftna Industrija Srbije, filed a fresh sanctions waiver request with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on June 26, hoping to extend the temporary licenses that have kept crude oil flowing into a country with exactly one refining operation.
The filing follows a pattern that has become almost ritualistic since US sanctions landed on NIS in January 2025. Temporary waivers get issued, deadlines approach, new requests get filed, and Serbia holds its breath. This time, the stakes are tied directly to advancing negotiations that could finally resolve the underlying problem: getting Russian ownership out of Serbia’s most critical energy asset.
A rolling series of last-minute reprieves
NIS is the country’s only oil refiner, and it has been majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft since 2008. Gazprom Neft holds between 45% and 56% of the company, a stake that became a serious liability when the US decided to crack down on secondary sanctions risks tied to Russian corporate ownership.
The US response has been a series of carefully calibrated temporary licenses. In April 2026, OFAC granted a 60-day extension. Then came a 15-day extension around June 16-17. Now, barely a week later, NIS is filing again with a July 1 deadline looming over the current waiver period.
