US extends waiver of sanctions on Serbia's Russian-owned NIS oil company

BELGRADE, Aug 26 (Reuters) - The United States has for the sixth time postponed sanctions on Serbia's Russian-owned oil company NIS NIIS.BEL, which operates the only oil refinery in the Balkan country, Serbia's energy minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said on Wednesday.

The waiver would apply until September 26, she said in a statement.

"The goal is the removal of NIS from the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list," the statement said.

On Tuesday, a Serbian official told Reuters Serbia has secured the sanctions waiver from Washington.

Washington initially placed sanctions on Russia's oil sector on January 10, and gave Gazprom Neft 45 days to exit ownership of NIS.

U.S. Treasury Department officials did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

NIS - in which Gazprom Neft SIBN.MM owns a 44.9% stake, Gazprom GAZP.MM 11.3% and the Serbian government 29.9% - operates Serbia's sole refinery, in the town of Pancevo, just outside of Belgrade.

Gazprom Neft transferred a stake of around 5.15% in NIS to Gazprom on February 26 in an attempt to ward off sanctions.

The Pancevo facility has an annual capacity of 4.8 million tons and covers most of the Balkan country's needs, and sanctions could jeopardise its supply of crude via Croatia's Janaf JANF.ZA.