MOL moves toward €1B deal for Serbia’s NIS
Hungarian energy group seeks majority stake as Russia prepares to exit.
Hungary’s MOL is set to pay up to €1 billion to acquire a majority stake in Serbia’s oil company NIS from Russian owners Gazprom Neft and Gazprom, according to comments made by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic last Monday.
MOL announced on January 19 that it had reached a binding agreement to purchase the 56.16% stake, though the company did not reveal the valuation. Vucic later stated: “As far as I understood, it (the price) was between 900 million and a billion (euros) for the 56% stake.” The deal requires approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which placed NIS under sanctions in October as part of broader measures targeting Russia’s energy sector.
OFAC has given Gazprom and Gazprom Neft until March 24 to divest their holdings. Following the tentative agreement, the agency granted NIS a sanctions reprieve until February 20, enabling the company to continue importing crude oil. Earlier sanctions forced a halt to oil deliveries via Croatia’s Janaf pipeline and temporarily shut down NIS’s Pancevo refinery, raising concerns over winter fuel shortages in Serbia.
Vucic revealed that Serbia had been prepared to offer double the agreed price to retain control of the stake but declined to elaborate, saying further details could “jeopardise Serbian interests.”
Gazprom holds 11.3% of NIS and Gazprom Neft 44.9%, while the Serbian government owns 29.9%. The rest belongs to employees and small shareholders. Beyond operating Serbia’s only refinery, NIS supplies around 80% of the country’s fuel and runs retail stations in Bosnia, Bulgaria and Romania.
If approved, the acquisition would mark one of MOL’s most significant regional expansions and a strategic shift in ownership of a key Balkan energy asset.
