Hellenic Petroleum

The establishment of a single company that will take over on behalf of the Greek state both the rights of exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons and the participations of DEPA in the international pipelines of natural gas is expected to be announced tomorrow morning by the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Greece's privatization agency (TAIPED) said on Tuesday that it has shortlisted seven investors for the purchase of a majority stake in the country's dominant gas supplier, DEPA Commercial.

Greece has short-listed six investors in the sale of its state-controlled gas distribution network DEPA Infrastructure, the country's privatization agency said on Tuesday.

Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum said on Wednesday its first-quarter core profit had topped estimates, rising 4% as it boosted production despite the coronavirus pandemic. 

Greece has received nine non-binding bids for the sale of a 65 percent stake in its dominant gas supplier DEPA Commercial, its privatisation agency said on Monday.

Investors who have expressed an interest in the stake include Shell Gas, Vitol Holding, Power Globe, MET Holding and C.G. Gas Limited of Greece's Copelouzos group, the agency said in a statement.

Hellenic Petroleum (ELPE) chief executive Andreas Shiamishis told Kathimerini in an interview that "the transition of the market to the new energy model is now certain and any companies that don't acknowledge that and don't include it in their plans will sooner or later face problems."

Nine groups submitted a letter of interest in the full ownership of DEPA Infrastructure, a new company to be created by the partial division of the Greek public natural gas company's (DEPA) infrastructure section, by the deadline on Friday.

State sell-off fund TAIPED has recorded strong investor interest in the concession of DEPA Infrastructure, the Public Gas Corporation offshoot that includes only the utility's infrastructure and of which 65 percent belongs to the state and 35 percent to Hellenic Petroleum.
The fund expects at least seven to eight bidders in the first stage of the tender.

After DEPA Infrastructure, the company that has undertaken the natural gas transmission network, it is now time for the privatization process of DEPA Commercial to start. Sources say that, by Friday, state privatization fund TAIPED will have published an invitation for expressions of interest in the sale of the state's 65 percent stake in the gas trading company.

The government is waiting for the price of Hellenic Petroleum shares to rise before approving the launch of the process to sell part of the 35 percent stake it controls in the oil company through the stock market.