Serbia’s Russian-owned oil company NIS has requested a seventh waiver to postpone U.S. sanctions that would put at risk its crude oil supply and is seeking its removal from Washington’s sanctions list, the company said on Friday.

The previous waiver, granted last month, expires on September 26.

NIS, majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft and Gazprom operates Serbia’s only oil refinery in the town of Pancevo, outside the capital Belgrade.

The request was submitted on September 18, NIS said. It added that it had also filed a request for its removal from the list of the Specially Designated Nationals but recognised in the statement that would be a “complex and long-term process”.

The U.S. Treasury Department initially placed sanctions on Russia’s oil sector on January 10 over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and gave Gazprom Neft 45 days to exit ownership of NIS.

The Pancevo facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million metric tons, covering most of the Balkan nation’s needs, and sanctions could jeopardise its supply of crude via Croatia’s Janaf.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Joe Bavier)