An employee at one of Greece’s two oil refineries is pictured in a file
photo. Greece’s biggest refiner, Hellenic Petroleum, said yesterday it
has launched a voluntary retirement scheme for administrative staff in
order to save costs, as it plans to add workers to its core refining
business. The company is cutting operating costs and wants to boost
earnings from its core refining and marketing operations, aiming to
double operating profits by 2012. ‘The plan targets mainly the
administrative division,’ Hellenic Petroleum CEO John Costopoulos told
Reuters in an interview. ‘The average age of our workforce is 47 to 48,
we want a younger profile.’ Under the scheme, the company will offer
early retirement to about 150 employees by late summer. The group
separately plans to hire about 300 new employees for its refining
business, where it plans to spend around 1.4 billion euros by 2012 to
upgrade facilities at Aspropyrgos, west of Athens, and in Thessaloniki.
(from "KATHIMERINI" newspaper, 13-14/06/2009)