"MOL worked together with us"; Vučić: "NIS has the right to operate, I expect 85,000 tons of oil on January 5"

Vučić said that he expects the refinery to resume full operations by January 17 or 19, and that by the expiration of NIS’s operating license on January 23, the Russians and Hungarians will reach an agreement on the purchase of the Russian stake in NIS.

“This is good news for the citizens of Serbia; not all problems have been resolved. What is important is that since last night NIS has the right to make payments, procure crude oil, and resume the production of petroleum products from crude oil. We believe that on the first working day, January 5, NIS will pay for 85,000 tons that are currently in Croatia and immediately transport them to Serbia. We have a problem because the refinery is not operating, so the catalyst needs to be replaced. The works will last from the 3rd,” Vučić said.

Vučić noted that January 23 is an important date when Americans expect to see all the main points of the future contract between the seller of NIS and the buyer, most likely MOL.

“I think that at that moment the Americans expect to see all the main points of the future contract between the seller of NIS and the future buyer, in this case most likely the Hungarian company MOL. I cannot say anything until the entire structure is finalized, but there is no doubt that MOL, together with NIS and the state of Serbia, worked on the letter to OFAC and on enabling the obtaining of the license,” the president said at the outset.

The good news is that this “gives us breathing room.”

“March 24 is still far off. I want to tell the citizens that we have suffered very serious consequences because the refinery was not operating. We have a decline in industrial production in both December and November due to the shutdown of the refinery, and this has a drastic and dramatic impact on the state of our economy. And since I hear conspiracy theories that the refinery will stop operating and that the Hungarians will shut it down, as they did in Croatia and elsewhere—it will not stop operating, because Serbia is also an owner with 29.87 percent and we have a say. We will try in the future to purchase an additional stake so that we exceed one third, in order to be able, I would say, not only to control and supervise, but also to participate more strongly in the management of NIS,” Vučić said.

“At the same time, it is of crucial importance for us to remove this kind of crisis from our field of vision so that we can focus on all other matters. The American conditions we received—about which little is said because they are not fully known, but I received them in talks with them from the very beginning of Russian divestment—were that there should be no Russian oil. We were not using Russian oil anyway, but this is probably a condition for the Hungarians so that they would not supply us with oil from the Druzhba pipeline, but would instead have to procure it via Croatia, and that is usually Iraqi oil or some other Arab oil purchased on the market,” Vučić said.

He pointed out that two new storage tanks for petroleum products have been built.

“In the meantime, in Smederevo, we worked quickly and intensively, and now we will work on additional storage of reserves. To translate this for citizens: things are neither entirely fair, nor easy, nor simple, because American policy is now clearly moving against Russian and Chinese companies in this part of the world, especially in Serbia, and that policy will not change in the short term, regardless of the situation in Ukraine. We have paid a high price, through no fault of our own, over the Linglong company, because I must speak openly as the president of Serbia—it is ridiculous when they talk to us about forced labor at the Linglong company, changing some foreign workers who were allegedly exploited,” he said, adding:

“It is particularly ridiculous when you look at how American companies operate in Southeast Asia, including the largest and most famous American companies from Vietnam onward, where children literally work—13, 14, 15 years old. No children work here, there is no exploitation, no forced labor, but this is a way to push out Chinese investments, and of course this harms us. The same is the case with Russian investments. So things are not easy, but we managed this, and I think the Americans want to send a signal to Serbia—this will not help the Russians much,” Vučić said.

He expressed hope that a solution for NIS will be reached on January 23.

“But what is important for people is that we have no problems. We have prepared amendments to our legislation and everything else so that we can respond in line with the needs of the citizens of Serbia. And I want to congratulate people on the New Year, tell them to sleep peacefully and think about how to fight and work hard this year so that we can achieve all the enormous results I spoke about at the last conference, so that this truly becomes, in economic terms, the best and most successful year in our history,” Vučić said.