ATHENS – The administration of the Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management (HHRM S.A) is expected to begin contacting Greek and foreign investors who have been granted concessions for hydrocarbon exploration in the Ionian Sea, as well as areas west-southwest of Crete, following the recent meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

During the meeting it was decided to speed up procedures for completing exploration.

According to HHRM’s sources, the decision to upgrade the projects to national importance, as announced by the prime minister, is the new framework in which the explorations are placed, which will be communicated to investors. In other words, the new strategy of accelerating the processes and facilitating the operations at each licensing stage will be pointed out, as well as the time schedules that have been set, which predict the completion of seismic surveys by the end of 2023 at the latest, if not in the spring.

The same sources stated that there is interest from other foreign companies to participate in the exploration in the six specific areas, without ruling out the possibility of claiming new “plots” beyond the specific ones. On this issue, the departure of energy companies from Russia is a good opportunity.