Greece has awarded concessions to Hellenic Petroleum and Energean Oil & Gas for onshore gas exploration and exploitation in three fields in the west of the country, Energy Ministry Panos Skourletis said on Thursday.
Hellenic Petroleum, Greece's biggest oil refiner, won two of the concessions and the country's sole oil producer Energean Oil & Gas one, the ministry said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Hellenic Petroleum said that it was willing to team up with other oil companies in the gas drilling business.
"We start independently but we are open to cooperations and proposals that will be based on and respect the business rules of the world industry," its CEO Grigoris Stergioulis said.
Greece, which clinched a third bailout with international creditors in August, has made several fruitless attempts over the last 50 years to find big oil and gas reserves. Its debt crisis has prompted the country to step up those efforts.
The companies submitted bids for the blocks last year.
Hellenic Petroleum - in a venture with Italy's Edison and Ireland's Petroceltic - and Energean Oil were the winners of drilling licences for three onshore and offshore blocks in western Greece awarded in 2014.
Petroceltic last year sold its rights to the other two partners after the oil price slump hit its business.
SOURCE / Reuters
