NIS to be sold by winter – Ministry of Energy expect that domestic oil company will be privatized prior to end of year

The fact that the Government of Serbia, on the last working day in March, prolonged the contract with the councilor for privatization of NIS (Consortium "Merill Linch – Raiffeisen investment") prior to the end of 2007, confirms the intention of the Government not to change the bases of the adopted strategy for privatization of Serbian oil industry.

Both NIS and the Ministry of Energy explain that the initial contract with the privatization councilor expired in March. After the postponement of tender for strategic partner of NIS, it is natural that the mandate of "Merill Linch", the world renowned consulting company, has been prolonged.

- For all these reasons, there is not any time left for the privatization of NIS, so that it is hard to believe that there will be some changes in the existing strategy made by "Merill Linch" - says Slobodan Sokolović, the Assistant to the Minister of Energy.

Tender for privatization of NIS had been announced for April and then September 2006. On these occasions, IMF warned that both refineries should be sold first, and then the majority package of the “rest” of the company.

Consortium “Merill Linch – Raiffeisen investment" took the position that NIS should be privatized as "vertically organized company" in several phases, the first of which would include sale of 25% of stocks, and the management would be left to the strategic partner, which was accepted by the Government.