O’Brien: There will be no disturbances in oil supply in Serbia, we don’t determine who owns NIS

There will be no disturbances in the oil supply of Serbia even though the USA has imposed sanctions against Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), said US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien and emphasized that they were directed at Russia.

– We have implemented sanctions against numerous Russian companies worldwide and we know how to ensure that, in the transition period, the consumers are not affected. It is important to note that these are sanctions against Russia. We have marked over 300 Russian energy and financial subjects, among which is a company from Serbia – O’Brien said in an interview for TV Kurir, which was published in today’s newspaper of the same media house.

As he said, “the aim of the sanctions is for less money to reach Russia, because they will spend it on killing women, children and civilians in Ukraine.”

He said that several dozen counties were affected by the sanctions, like Serbia.

– My team has already met with the Scandinavian countries in order to study some of the implications of our sanctions in those countries. It’s a normal talk, but with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Government we talked about a way of removing the Russian ownership from the oil refinery, about doing it in line with the international law and without disturbances in supply for the citizens of Serbia. We have done so before, so we will find a way this time too – O’Brien said.

He assessed that Russia had bought NIS “for a very small amount of money, it has taken out probably billions of euros from Serbia in the past years and now your country will have the opportunity to run that industry to the benefit of the people of Serbia.”

– We are not requesting for a concrete owner of company to be installed, Serbia is to decide on it and then a much healthier ownership relation with that strategically important infrastructure segment can be established – said O’Brien.

NIS a.d. Novi Sad

Naftna industrija Srbije

NIS

James O Brien

oil supply of Serbia

US sanctions against NIS

sanctions against NIS

American sanctions

Russian ownership in NIS

war in Ukraine