Development ministry officials have lately been expressing doubts over whether the sale of a 23.17 percent stake in state-controlled Hellenic Petroleum to a Russian-Greek consortium will finally go ahead.
With the consortium partners, Lukoil, Russia’s biggest oil firm, and Greece’s Petrola, a Latsis Group company, expected to submit their final offer by January 10, ministry officials say that a signature to close the deal would be a “nice surprise” but added that they most likely saw an impasse and ultimate failure as the outcome.
Since Petrola is keen to close the deal, the only reason for failure would be if Lukoil were to back off. Development Ministry officials who claim this is likely, say Lukoil will review its inernational strategy in the face of an increasingly likely US intervention in Iraq.
There are indications from Lukoil on a change of strategy, although insiders interpret the fact that the consortium had asked, and got, an additional month to submit a revised proposal, as a sign of disagreements between the partners. At the same time it became known that Lukoil’s CEO, Mr. Vagit Alekperov in a recent press statement, following Lukoil’s sale of its share in the ATG field in the Kaspian Sea to Japanese company Inpex Inc., remarked that “Lukoil has fully revised its participation strategy. From now on”, said Alekperov, “we shall not participate in companies or consortia which we do not fully control”.
Officially, the Development ministry is keen to conclude the deal. However, the most vocal opponents of the deal, Hellenic Petroleum unionists, are members of the ruling socialists and were once seen as supporters of Development Minister Akis Tsochadzopoulos, who used to represent hard-line socialist opposition to PM Costas Simitis’s reformism. According to sources close to the minister, he is not that happy with the consortium proposals and their perceived future role as mangers in one of Greece’s largest and financially most successful companies. On the other hand the Minister is backing the present management of Hellenic Petroleum in their expansionist plans and regional growth policy which has aheady strited bearing Financial and other benefits. (see, Hellenic Petroleum is on the Path to Expansion, in energia.gr, December 18, 2002).