BELGRADE, Jan 2, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic expressed hope Thursday that Russia and Hungary could quickly wrap up the sale of a Serbian oil company caught up in Washington's sanctions against the Kremlin over the invasion of Ukraine.

US sanctions on the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), which is majority-owned by Russian companies, forced the shutdown in early December of Serbia's sole oil refinery, which supplies around 80 percent of the Balkan country's fuel needs.

While the United States has demanded the total withdrawal of Russian ownership from NIS, Belgrade said on Wednesday that Washington had granted the firm a temporary reprieve allowing the Pancevo refinery to resume operations until January 23.

According to Belgrade, Gazprom is in negotiation with the Hungarian fossil fuel company MOL to sell the 56-percent stake controlled by Gazprom Neft and Intelligence, two subsidiaries of the Russian giant.

"I hope that the Russians and Hungarians will finish their work" by the January 23 deadline, Vucic told the press Thursday.

The president added that the refinery could import crude again from January 5 and would be working at full steam by around January 17, days before the deadline set by Washington.

The US measures have hit hard in Serbia, a key Kremlin ally and one of the few European countries not to have imposed sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war.

Serbia sold a majority stake in NIS to Gazprom for 400 million euros ($470 million at current rates) in 2008, with the Russian firm investing several billion euros in the company since.

The Serbian president had previously said that Russia, a key ally of Belgrade which supplies the majority of the Balkan country's natural gas needs, was not interested in reselling its shares in NIS to Serbia.

Given the firm's importance to the Serbian economy, Vucic had repeatedly promised that the government would step in should no agreement on the sale of Russian shares be reached by January 15.

NIS employs some 13,500 people, and in 2024 contributed more than two billion euros ($2.5 billion) in tax revenue, or nearly 12 percent of the national budget, according to the firm's annual report.