Hellenic Petroleum (ELPE) has submitted offers, with partners, for hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation rights concerning three offshore blocks off Crete and in the Ionian Sea, the petroleum group has confirmed in a company statement.

A consortium comprised of Total (40%, operator), ExxonMobil (40%) and ELPE (20%) submitted offers to tenders offering hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation rights for two offshore blocks, west of Crete and southwest of Crete, while a further offer for an Ionian block, offshore western Greece, was submitted by Repsol (50%, operator) and Hellenic Petroluem, ELPE announced.

The offers by ELPE and its partners come as a result of the stated interested for domestic hydrocarbon exploration and production by the Greek petroleum group, it noted in the statement.

In recent years, ELPE has secured upstream rights to specific areas in west Greece: Patraikos Gulf (ELPE 50% operator, Edison 50%), block 2 (Total 50% operator, ELPE 25% and Edison 25%), Arta – Preveza and NW Peloponnese. The company is also negotiating lease agreements for blocks 1 and 10. 

In his statement, ELPE’s chief executive Grigoris Stergioulis pointed out: “As part of ELPE’s group development strategy, we are consistently implementing our decision to be active in the national effort to discover and exploit domestic hydrocarbon reserves. We rely on our competitive advantages, namely the accumulated experience, technical brilliance, know-how and well-rounded understanding of the Greek business environment that our employees possess.

Continuing our successful participation in international tenders in western Greece, and taking into consideration the recent, positive research conducted in the Patraikos area, we submitted three new offers for the offshore blocks in the Ionian Sea and in the southwest of Crete, thus manifesting the ELPE group’s international prestige. We collaborate with top international companies in our sector able to provide the human capital, the ideas, the advanced technology and the financial capability required, so as to successfully face, along with the ELPE group, this unprecedented – for Greek standards – challenge.

It is our desire to leverage international best practice and the most advanced technology available in order to trace potential reserves; such a development will be a game-changer for the ELPE group and our prospects, it will substantially endorse the national economy, and will strengthen the local communities. The group, stronger than ever before, declares its dedication to the preservation of the country’s natural heritage, by implementing the strictest international regulations for the protection of the environment, a position that is non-negotiable for the group.”