Debt-hit Greece has untapped energy and mineral resources and will soon issue exploration tenders in a bid to jump-start its flagging economy, a junior minister said Friday.

"There are serious indications that in several areas there are likely hydrocarbon reserves that could cover between one-fifth and one-third of our energy requirements for the next 30 years," deputy energy minister Yiannis Maniatis told Ethnos daily in an interview.

"Energy and mineral wealth can turn us into protagonists once more," he said.

Maniatis said that the country's mineral reserves alone are worth over EUR38 billion at current prices.

In particular, the northern Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace contain "confirmed" reserves of nickel, mercury, lead, copper, gold and silver worth over EUR25 billion, the minister said.

Though this mineral wealth isn't entirely accessible at this stage, the Greek government is placing emphasis on hydrocarbon exploration and is hoping to have a state regulator operational in the next 18 months, Maniatis said.

A presidential decree establishing the Greek Regulatory Corporation for Hydrocarbons was put out this week.

Preliminary exploration has already located hydrocarbon resources in Kavala and Epanomi in northeastern Greece, Katakolo in the western Peloponnese, the Ionian Sea and the Libyan Sea south of the island of Crete, Maniatis said.

An existing oilfield near Kavala covered up to 20% of Greece's needs in the 1980s and yielded over $600 million in profits overall, he said.

Greece requires some 120 million barrels of oil annually and pays around $12 billion-$14 billion for oil imports each year, equivalent to 4-5% of its gross domestic product, Maniatis said.

The country is in dire financial straits after nearly going bankrupt this year.

It was saved by a massive loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund but was forced to adopt tough austerity measures that plunged the economy into a deep recession and brought thousands of layoffs.

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