Interior minister forms team to investigate NIS sale

Interior minister forms team to investigate NIS sale

NIS was privatized in late 2008 when Russia's Gazprom Neft bought 51 percent of the company, while the remaining 49 percent of shares were distributed for free to the Serbian people.

The company was sold for EUR 400 million with a clause that required Gazprom to invest another EUR 500 million to modernize a refinery in Pančevo, which was done within the required deadline.

Officials of the two countries signed in Moscow in December 2008 a set of agreements on energy cooperation, while the presidents of the two nations at the time, Boris Tadić and Dmitry Medvedev, signed a joint statement guaranteeing that the documents would be implemented.

At the same time, Serbia's energy minister from 2008 Petar Škundrić and Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov signed the sale contract for 51 percent of NIS, while Srbijagas head Dušan Bajatović signed memorandum of understanding with Gazprom Export head Alexander Medvedev and a cooperation protocol with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. The last two documents refer to the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline and the natural gas storage facility in Banatski Dvor, northern Serbia.

A series of statements issued in recent days by the leading party in the government coalition, the Serb Progressive Party (SNS), and the opposition's Democratic Party (DS), which was in power when the said energy cooperation agreements were signed, mentioned the NIS sale contract.

SNS officials said they "no longer had the question about the contract that Borislav Stefanović and Bojan Pajtić made with NIS because authorities would answer it."