Hungarian oil and gas titan MOL swells in size with Russian stake grab in Serbia’s NIS

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL on Monday said it signed a binding heads of agreement with Russia’s Gazprom Neft on the acquisition of a 56.15pc stake in Serbian peer NIS.

Purchase agreement to be signed before April

The parties aim to sign the sales and purchase agreement by March 31, 2026. The completion of the transaction requires the approval of the United States of America’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). “The transaction…can ensure the long-term, stable operation of the Pancevo refinery and the related business units, as well as the uninterrupted supply of the region’s energy markets,” MOL said.

MOL Group is in negotiations with ADNOC, the national oil company of the United Arab Emirates, to join the owners of NIS as a minority shareholder, while MOL retains majority ownership and control, MOL chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernádi said. “MOL is committed to working together with the Serbian government to further strengthen the security of supply in Serbia and in the region,” he added.

Servicing Serbia, Romania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

NIS’s refinery in Pancevo has an annual capacity of close to 4.8 million tonnes. NIS also operates nearly 400 service stations across Serbia, Romania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In its upstream portfolio, NIS has around 173 million barrels of oil equivalent 2P reserves with daily crude and gas production in Serbia exceeding 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It also holds exploration licences in Romania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Serbia also boosts it stake in NIS

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL has reached an agreement with Russia’s Gazprom Neft to acquire a majority stake in Serbian peer NIS, Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Dedovic Handanovic said on Monday.

Dedovic Handanovic said the conditions of the sale and purchase agreement had been forwarded to authorities in the United States, MTI’s local correspondent reported. She added that the state of Serbia could boost its stake in NIS by 5pc, to give it more than one-third.

Addressing the possibility of the involvement of partners from the United Arab Emirates in the transaction, Dedovic Handanovic said they were expected to participate. She added that talks on the purchase had to wind up by March 24.

Refinery will be kept open

Dedovic Handanovic said MOL had committed to keeping NIS’s refinery in Pancevo open and to maintaining production levels there.

NIS was hit by US Treasury Department sanctions against the Russian energy sector in October, and crude deliveries through the Adria pipeline ceased. US authorities issued a waiver on December 31 and crude deliveries resumed. However, the US gave NIS until March 24 to find a buyer for the Russian stake in the company.

Gazprom Neft holds 44.9pc in NIS and Gazprom owns 11.3pc. The government of Serbia controls 29.9pc.

Hungarian government backs MOL purchase of NIS stake

The Hungarian government has backed and will continue to support oil and gas company MOL’s purchase of a Russian-owned stake in Serbian peer NIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Monday, after a provisional agreement on the transaction was announced.

In a statement issued by his ministry, Szijjártó said the government would give its full diplomatic support for the transaction.

He highlighted the benefits to regional energy supply security of an integration of the Slovak, Hungarian and Serbian crude markets.