By the way, as if it were an unimportant piece of information, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced in his last public address that Serbia will be subject to EU sanctions for Russian oil from November 1. This kind of epilogue was announced and expected for a long time, and Nova’s interlocutors estimate that there is no reason to worry, at least as far as oil procurement is concerned. The question of the price of fuel at the pumps is, as they say, something else. An increase in prices should be expected there.
“Well, in order to talk about nonsense, in order not to talk about what we will do with electricity, what we will do with oil, since the first of November there is no more Russian oil for us, we are under sanctions.” So that we don’t talk about gas, fuel oil and coal. “We just talk about stupid things, because it’s easiest for us to talk about stupid things, because we know how to do it best in a bar, where there is no responsibility”, he said.
As Milan Ćulibrk, the editor-in-chief and responsible editor of the NIN weekly, says for “Nova” , this statement by the president of the state is purely spreading panic.
“NIS does not import the majority of oil from Russia even now, so we should not ask if we will have fuel at all – but how much it will cost”, notes Ćulibrk.
According to him, the price of crude oil on the world market is “calming down”, but that does not necessarily mean anything in Serbia.
Energy expert Milun Babić expects that the price increase will be a logical consequence of the sanctions.
“Oil transport will be different and more complicated, it is to be expected that because of that there will be an increase in prices and that it will also reach the pockets of citizens,” Babić told Nova.
There will certainly be fuel, the only question is how much it will cost
Nova’s interlocutors state that the bigger problem for Serbia is how to get gas, not how to secure oil, even under the conditions of sanctions.
Oil is available and can be obtained from other sources, and prices are not “skyrocketing”. Serbia procured oil from Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Iran. Only a fifth comes from Russia.
Both producers and sellers of petroleum derivatives have been in such “panic mode” for months. Due to the panic that they would not earn enough, it happened that, at the moment when the prices of crude oil on the world market were falling, diesel in Serbia was 120 percent more expensive.
By the way, professor at the FEFA faculty, Goran Radosavljević, stated that Serbia is the only country in the region that, despite the fact that the price of oil on the world market has been falling for a month, has raised the price of diesel.
“Since Friday, the price of diesel has increased by 3.5 dinars per liter at a time when oil prices are at their lowest level in the past six months”, he said, adding that it is a “serious robbery of citizens” for which the government is to blame.
Alternatives for Russian oil
As Željko Marković, leader of the energy and resources sector of Deloitte Serbia, previously pointed out for “Nova”, the sanctions imposed on Russian oil that arrived in Serbia via JANAF from Croatia can be remedied by finding new sources – which is a possible scenario. .
Miloš Zdravković, an expert in energy, agrees with him, who reminded that Serbia previously used Iranian and Kazakh oil, which can be a good alternative in such situations, Danas writes.