According to a Serbian economist, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has extended a special licence to the Croatian company JANAF, allowing it to continue transporting crude oil for the Serbian company NIS until 30 September 2026.
The company stated that it had secured the licence extension with the assistance of the Croatian government and US legal advisers. The authorisation allows it to continue fulfilling its existing contract with NIS within the framework of the US sanctions regime.
Consequently, crude oil supplies via the Adriatic Pipeline can continue for at least another month. The oil is delivered by sea to the JANAF terminal in Omišalj on the island of Krk, after which it is transported via the pipeline system towards Serbia and used by the NIS refinery in Pančevo.
This decision is of critical importance to Serbia. The refinery in Pančevo is the country’s only major oil refinery and meets around 80 per cent of the Serbian market’s demand for petroleum products. The plant’s design capacity is up to 4.8 million tonnes of crude oil per year.
NIS itself was also granted a separate special licence on 28 August. It is also valid until 30 September and allows the company to continue oil refining, crude oil imports, financial settlements, maintenance and other operations necessary for stable market supplies.
The extension of the licence is particularly important given the problems with alternative supply channels. Due to low water levels in the Danube, the capacity to import fuel by barge was significantly reduced during the summer. In July, fuel imports via this route amounted to only about a quarter of the planned volume, which has increased Serbia’s dependence on the operation of the Pančevo refinery and supplies via JANAF.
NIS and JANAF are bound by a three-year contract for the transport of up to 10 million tonnes of crude oil, which remains in force until December 2026. Actual supply volumes depend on the quantity of crude oil that NIS purchases and delivers to the Omishal terminal.
The main issue now concerns a change in NIS’s ownership structure. Hungary’s MOL is in talks with Gazprom Neft regarding the purchase of the Russian stake, amounting to 56.15 per cent. The potential deal is seen as a long-term way of removing NIS from the scope of US sanctions. OFAC has also issued separate temporary licences to facilitate the negotiations.
US sanctions against NIS came into full effect in October 2025 due to Russian control over the company. Since then, OFAC has repeatedly issued temporary licences, allowing Serbia to maintain the refinery’s operations and oil supplies via Croatia whilst negotiations on the sale of the Russian stake were ongoing.