Oil supplies are still regular, officials say, but the question is how much longer - weeks or months
For now OIL there is, and until when - it is not known.
This is how the Ministry's announcement could be translated of energy after a meeting where they gathered representatives of several ministries, commodity reserves, Oil Industry of Serbia and other oil companies.
Assistant Minister of Mining and Energy, Saša Koković, said that at the moment "there are no disruptions in the supply of petroleum products to the domestic market", but that scenarios are being considered to ensure security of supply.
"Reserves managed by the Directorate for Energy Reserves and the Republic Directorate for Commodity Reserves are currently at their maximum, and together with oil companies, we are working to increase the import of oil derivatives," said Koković.
He says that the oil companies assure him that they will import more oil than usual in November in order to partially compensate for the interruption of the flow of oil through Janaf, as a result of US sanctions against NIS.
But the numbers do not inspire confidence. Representatives of the Association of Oil Companies previously announced the import of more than 100.000 tons of oil derivatives by the end of October, by all modes of transport. "Vreme" previously wrote about the "shadow fleet" with which oil can be supplied through Hungary - of course, more expensive than when it flows through an oil pipeline.
However, one hundred thousand tons is only a fraction considering that Serbia consumes about four million tons of petroleum products annually. Refinery in Pančev, it was announced, relies exclusively on its own stocks and domestic oil production.
President Aleksandar Vučić he stated on Sunday that there will certainly be oil until November 10 or 15, and that after that everything is questionable. He also hinted at the "sabotage" of the transport from Hungary, where the investigation is ongoing.
Vučić announced that next week "we will make our own decisions and protect the population" if something is not resolved this week.
In a drastic interpretation, Serbia is only two weeks away from shortages. Some experts expect the problems to appear a little later.
"In most cases, the supply itself should not be drastically threatened until the end of the year and during the winter. And after that, we will face enormous uncertainty, the outcome of which will depend on what will happen in the meantime," Vasko Kelić, a researcher at the Center for Economic Research of the Institute of Social Sciences, told Vreme earlier.
However, Serbia is facing a supply crisis the likes of which has not been seen for a long time.
NIS was hit by American sanctions because of the majority Russian ownership in that company. Although this happened back in January - after which the application of the sanctions was only postponed - official Belgrade did not find a solution to avoid it.
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