Commission: Curtain call for the sale of DEPA Commercial

The business of selling DEPA Commercial has come to an end, according to what the European Commission makes known in its 14th interim report (May 2022) on the supervision of the Greek economy.

The tender process initiated by the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund-HRADF about three and a half years ago is ending ignominiously, as officially recorded in the text of the European Commission.

More specifically, the authors of the report, referring to the course of the privatizations of the HRADF, note about DEPA Commercial: “The final court decision that will clarify issues of the company is expected to be issued in two to three years. And therefore the current competition can not proceed. Therefore, the HRADF is considering other alternatives “.

The Commission is obviously talking about the pending litigation between DEPA Commercial and Hellenic Petroleum, which has to do with the industry of Kavala, which is claiming compensation for the way of pricing quantities of gas that it bought in the past.

Thus, the once-emblematic, for the government, privatization which had attracted the interest of all the major energy players in the country, seems to be shelved.

Transfer

However, the other two energy privatizations of DEPA Infrastructure and the Underground Natural Gas Storage of South Kavala are also being postponed, always according to what is described in the report of the Commission.

The success story of the government in the field of privatization, DEPA Infrastructure, for which Italgas gave 733 million euros in order to acquire it, has not been closed yet… According to the Commission, the certification of its three DEPA Infrastructure (EDA Attica, EDA THESSA and DEDA) subsidiaries is expected by the end of May  and the financial closing of the transaction is expected in mid-June.

It should be noted that the Commission’s report does not describe the latest developments published by OT last Friday and related to the terms that RAE puts on Italian investors in the certification decision.

For the end of July, the last phase of the HRADF tender for the concession of the Underground Natural Gas Storage of South Kavala is postponed. According to the Commission, the first draft concession agreement is expected to be distributed to potential investors by the end of May. RAE is estimated to issue a decision on the framework for setting billing by the end of the same month.

The submission of binding offers is expected by the end of July and the selection of the preferred investor by the end of October.