Hellenic Petroleum ELPE has acknowledged the governments of Greece and North Macedonia are working intensely for the reopening of an oil pipeline linking the petroleum group’s Thessaloniki refinery with its Okta subsidiary refinery in the neighboring country’s capital, Skopje, estimating the pipeline will reopen in the first quarter of 2022.

The pipeline has remained closed since 2016. ELPE has already proceeded with necessary maintenance work to protect the pipeline from internal corrosion and ensure it will be ready to operate once administrative and bureaucratic procedures have been completed.

A report published by ELPET Valkaniki, a fully owned ELPE subsidiary for Balkan markets, noted that OKTA stopped processing crude oil early in 2013 for business reasons after deciding to operate commercially with imports of finished products, a move that kept the pipeline inactive.