International interest in drilling for Greek Oil and Gas

Hellenic Petroleum (HELPE) announced on Wednesday that there is international interest from eight foreign oil firms to search for oil and gas in Greece.

According to Yiannis Grigoriou, general director of HELPE’s Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Division, the exploration area of interest is in the Arta-Preveza areas and the northwestern Peloponnese.

HELPE is currently in negotiations with the interested parties which include oil giants Total, Shell, Repsol, Japex, Dana Petroleum, INA and Hunt.

Grigoriou said that the concession contracts for the two areas had been agreed with the environment and energy ministry. What now remained to be done was an evaluation by the Court of Audit, their signature and ratification by Parliament, he added.

HELPE was currently in negotiations with a total of 25 companies interested in conducting oil exploration in areas of Greece, he revealed, and had already initialled agreements for the concession to Block 2 northwest of Corfu to a consortium made up by Total and Edison. Also to be initialled soon was a contract for exploration in an area off Kyparissia Bay, he said.