Baku, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) expects the sale of Greece’s natural-gas grid operator DESFA to continue unhindered, the chairman HRADF of Stergios Pitsiorlas told in interview to Bloomberg.
He said HRADF expects Italy’s Snam SpA likely to make an offer to SOCAR for a 17 percent stake by the end of September or early October.
Greece must find a mutually-acceptable agreement with Snam and SOCAR on usage fees for the grid network, said Pitsiorlas.
SOCAR won a tender in 2013 on the purchase of a 66-percent stake in DESFA for 400 million euros.
The European Commission started an inquiry into the compliance of the DESFA deal with the EU regulations in November 2014.
Currently, the deal is being considered by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition.
Earlier, Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said that the deal on SOCAR's purchasing the 66-percent share in Greece's gas transmission system operator DESFA will be completed after Italy's Snam purchases 17 percent of that share.