Guess Who Is Concerned Over Hydrocarbon Exploration Due To Sunday's Elections: FORBES!

When we here at HellasFrappe continually say that its all about the oil (meaning the present crisis and who will get their hands on Greece's natural reserves), we know exactly what we are talking about. This is one of the reasons that our blog continually publishes articles about this industry and also why we feature many articles that focus on geopolitical issues that directly and indirectly affect Greece.

Concern over the day after (the Euro and municipal elections) was expressed by Forbes magazine at the weekend in an interesting article that forecasts that the notes that Sunday's elections are not going to directly affect the current Greek parliament, but they can "work against” the current leadership and policies of prime minister, Antonis Samaras.

Commenting on the licenses that were awarded last week to several consortiums for exploration, Forbes says that “Greece moved to kick-start its dormant energy exploration effort with the approval of three exploration licences, each allocated to consortiums led by domestic companies,”.

Two of these licenses, underlines the article, were awarded to Energean Oil & Gas, which announced that it is going to cooperate with Canada’s Petra Petroleum Company (in the area of Ioannina) and the UK's Trajan Oil Company (in the area of Katakolo). The third license was given to a consortium of Hellenic Petroleum, Edison and Petroceltic for offshore surveys in the Gulf of Patras.

Forbes describes as “positive” the developments of these exploration licences, while expressing concern for “further delays” in implementing the research projects, since the licenses should be ratified by the Parliament, where “turmoil” is expected to occur as a result of the European elections.

Commenting on the stance of SYRIZA, Forbes says that the far-leftist party has until now ignored making any official statement about these licenses, but in the past had noted that they want to nationalize Greece's natural resources. Forbes then argues that the “threat of nationalization will make it difficult to appeal to foreign investors already wary of the country’s financial landscape,”.

Quite interestingly, and not surprisingly, the same article includes a statement from Energean CEO Mathias Rigas who more or less expressed the confidence that these projects will be ratified by the Greek parliament without any complications.

(So is it safe to conclude that he has already begun buttering up the political elite to forward the interests of his company? Dahhh.... This only once again proves that in Greece the ruling elite help each other, and only push forward each other's interests rather than focus on the interests of the nation.)