ELPE to take delivery of first load of Iranian crude oil next month

The first 100-million-euro installment to be paid to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) by Hellenic Petroleum (ELPE) next week will set off the implementation of the two sides’ agreement to restart their cooperation in the supply of Iranian crude to Greece this spring.

The ELPE-NIOC agreement came after the recent lifting of sanctions against Tehran, and includes a 2012 debt totaling 600 million euros that ELPE will repay in installments. The first quantities of crude are expected to arrive at the Aspropyrgos refinery in western Attica in March and April, with some 4,000 barrels to be refined per day.

The framework of the deal signed in Athens on January 22 was also discussed on Sunday and Monday during meetings in Tehran attended by ELPE chief executive Grigoris Stergioulis in the context of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s official visit to Iran. Although no official announcements were made after the new round of talks, the Greek side appears to consider the agreement a done deal, with only a few details left to iron out at the next meeting in March in Athens.

Sources have told Kathimerini that the 2012 debt will be repaid over the next four years, with 50 percent of that to be settled through the supply of ready gasoline and diesel products from ELPE to Iran, in order to cover the Middle Eastern country’s increased fuel needs as its existing infrastructure is unable to respond due to the lack of modernization.

Another 10 percent of the debt will be covered through engineering work by ELPE subsidiary Asprofos on the upgrading of Iranian refineries.