BUDAPEST, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian oil and gas company MOL and the Serbian government on Tuesday signed a shareholders' agreement on the future governance of Serbia's oil company NIS, as MOL negotiates the acquisition of a majority stake from Russia's Gazprom Neft.
The agreement comes amid U.S. pressure to remove Russian ownership from NIS, which supplies around 80 percent of Serbia's fuel market and has faced the threat of U.S. sanctions since early 2025.
MOL said the agreement would enable it, as a prospective majority shareholder, to oversee the professional management and development of NIS while ensuring the continued operation of the Pancevo refinery and the security of Serbia's energy supplies. The Hungarian company is currently negotiating the purchase of Gazprom Neft's 56.15 percent stake in NIS.
"The transaction would allow us to strengthen energy security across the region and promote closer cooperation among Central and Eastern European energy companies," MOL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Zsolt Hernadi said in a statement.
The agreement will enter into force only if MOL and Gazprom Neft conclude a share purchase agreement and obtain approval from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Under the arrangement approved by Belgrade, the Serbian government would increase its stake in NIS by an additional 5 percentage points, giving the state greater influence over key corporate decisions. The parties also agreed to maintain operations at the Pancevo refinery for at least the next decade at average capacity levels recorded before the introduction of U.S. sanctions.
NIS has been majority-owned by Russian energy interests since 2008, when Serbia sold a controlling stake in the company to Gazprom. ■