The ongoing negotiations between government officials and the country’s lenders for revisions to the just-introduced NOME auctions can, as they stand, be interpreted in different ways.

From one vantage point, the lenders appear to be winning a roll out of electricity amount percentages for auctions to be staged in 2017. In this case, next year’s auctions, staged by main power utility PPC, will need to include an amount representing 12 percent of consumption in 2016 as well as a repeat of an amount offered in 2016 (8 percent of consumption).

According to PPC, this amount represents a disproportionately high percentage of lignite and hydropower production.

From another perspective, the negotiations seem positive for PPC as it looks like Greek government officials will gain the right to revise electricity amount percentages offered through the NOME auctions in the event that PPC exceeds its market share contraction targets.

Practically speaking, if PPC carves out and places for sale, by March, through a tender, at least one subsidiary firm carrying a percentage of the utility’s clients, then a downward revision of the NOME auction electricity amounts will be feasible in June. RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, is expected to assess the NOME data annually, every June.

In this sense, the NOME auction negotiations are keeping alive the prospect of PPC’s split-and-sale plan offering a share of its clients to rivals. The utility’s CEO Manolis Panagiotakis has said the plan will be carried out only if suitable provisions are offered though the bailout talks.

The NOME auctions, introduced in October, are intended to provide third parties with access to PPC’s low-cost lignite and hydropower sources as a measure to help break the utility’s market dominance.