Transgaz loses bid for Greece’s grid operator - BUSINESS REVIEW

April 20, 2018 12:08
Sorin Melenciuc 

The consortium led by Spanish company Reganosa, including Romanian state-owned monopoly Transgaz and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), lost the bid for Greece’s grid operator DESFA, Athens accepting a EUR 535 million offer from the rival consortium led by Italy’s Snam, according to Reuters.

DESFA runs a gas transport network by pipelines of 1,459 km in Greece. The winning bidder was a consortium of Italy’s Snam, Spain’s Enagas Internacional and Belgium’s Fluxys.

The sale of a majority stake in DESFA is mandated under Greece’s latest international financial bailout. The Greek government is selling a 31 percent stake in DESFA and Hellenic Petroleum, Greece’s biggest oil refiner, 35 percent.

For Greece is the second attempt to sale the company, after a previous EUR 400 million deal with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR fell through.

For Transgaz, the bid was the first major attempt to step outside Romania, in an area dominated for decades by Russian giant Gazprom, the main gas supplyer of the countries from the region.

Greece accepts Snam-led consortium's offer for gas grid DESFA - REUTERS

APRIL 19, 2018 / 7:30 PM / 2 DAYS AGO

Angeliki Koutantou

• Athens relaunched the sale last year
• Named Snam-led consortium “preferred investor”
• Greece a crossroads for new gas routes, consortium says

ATHENS, April 19 (Reuters) - Greece has accepted a 535 million euro ($662 million) offer from a consortium led by Italy’s Snam for a majority stake in gas grid operator DESFA, naming it the “preferred investor”, its privatisation agency said on Thursday.

DESFA runs a network for transporting gas from the Greek-Bulgarian and Greek-Turkish borders via a 1,459-km (907-mile) pipeline. It also has a liquefied gas terminal facility on an islet off Athens.

Strategically-placed, Greece could represent an important crossroads for the diversification of supplies and new natural gas routes in Europe, the consortium said.

It anticipated the transaction would be finalised in the second half of 2018 after securing approvals, including antitrust clearance.

At least one DESFA sale offer believed to exceed €500m - ENERGY PRESS

16/04/2018

At least one of two second-round offers submitted last week by two consortiums participating in an international tender offering 66 percent of DESFA, the natural gas grid operator, exceeds 500 million euros, according to energypress sources.

Such a level, if confirmed, would be well above the tender’s first-round offers and a winning 400 million-euro bid that had been submitted by Azerbaijan’s Socar to a previous tender, also offering 66 percent of DESFA, which was not finalized.

In another bonus, the government appears to have secured Greek State rights for natural gas projects and infrastructure of strategic interest in a shareholders’ agreement to accompany the transfer of DESFA’s 66 percent to a new strategic investor.

DESFA bids to finally be opened at end of this week - ENERGY PRESS

26 March 2018

Offers made by two bidding teams to an international tender offering a 66 percent stake of DESFA, the natural gas grid operator, are finally expected to be opened at the end of this week, a month and a half after they had been submitted.

TAIPED, the state privatization fund, has virtually completed its thorough processing and inspections of the offers submitted by the two bidding consortiums, while the participating teams have provided responses as to which respective team member plans to assume the management role, sources have informed.

For quite some time now, officials and pundits have appeared confident the offers may exceed 500 million euros, 25 percent over an offer made by Azerbaijan’s Socar in a previous and unfinished sale attempt.

Snam plans to ‘establish Athens as base for southeast Mediterranean’ - ENERGY PRESS

23/FEB/2018

Snam will aim to contribute to Greece becoming a regional energy hub in the southeast Mediterranean, Federico Ermoli, chief international assets officer at Italy’s Snam, heading one of two bidding teams vying for a 66 percent stake in DESFA, the natural gas grid operator, has stressed in an interview with Greek daily Kathimerini.

Snam and its bidding partners, Spain’s Enagás Internacional and Belgium’s Fluxys, submitted a binding offer to the DEFSA tender last Friday. Staged by TAIPED, the state privatization fund, its content is still being processed before offers are opened, probably late next week.

Another Spanish entry, Regasificadora del Noroeste (Reganosa Asset Investments) joined forces with Romania’s Transgaz and the EBRD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, for the other offer.

“We aspire to further develop the company and contribute to making Greece an energy hub in the Mediterranean for natural gas stemming from various regions,” Ermoli remarked, while adding that DESFA requires strong partners capable of making investments for the future of the firm, country and its geopolitical role.

Commenting on Greece’s strategic importance for Snam, Ermoli said the firm intends to establish an office base in Athens to manage its activities concerning interests in the southeast Meditteranean region.

Greece gets two binding bids in gas grid sale - REUTERS

FEBRUARY 16, 2018 / 7:01 PMReporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes in Milan; Editing by Karolina Tagaris and Jane Merriman

ATHENS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Greece has received two binding bids for a 66 percent stake in its gas grid operator DESFA, the Greek privatisation agency (HRADF) said on Friday, a sale that is a key condition of the country’s international bailout.

The agency said bids were submitted by a consortium of Italy’s Snam, Spain’s Enagas Internacional and Belgium’s Fluxys, and a consortium of Spain’s Regasificadora del Noroeste (Reganosa), Romania’s Transgaz and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Friday’s deadline for binding bids comes ahead of a euro zone finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday which will assess Greece’s bailout progress and decide on disbursing more bailout loans.

A share purchase agreement and a shareholders’ agreement for DESFA are due to be signed by April for the sale to conclude by June, before Greece exits its third bailout in August.

Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Hungary to connect gas networks - ROMANIA INSIDER

20 Jul 2017 

Gas companies in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Hungary have agreed to unite their gas networks to increase the supply security in South-Eastern Europe, the Bulgarian Energy Ministry said yesterday, Reuters and BTA reported.

State-owned Transgaz (Romania), Bulgartransgaz (Bulgaria), DESFA (Greece), FGSZ (Hungary) and ICGB, the company responsible for the development, construction and operation of the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector, signed a memorandum yesterday in Bucharest.

It will be the basis for building the necessary gas pipeline system to transport natural gas to transit countries and the European market, from Greece through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary and vice versa, reads a press release of the Bulgarian Energy Ministry.