Azernews.Az

By Fatma Babayeva

Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR can reduce its stake in Greek natural gas transmission system operator DESFA from 66 to 41 percent, reports Greek media.

Earlier, Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Panos Skourletis said that SOCAR needs to sell 17 percent to a European company in order to complete the acquisition of 66 percent stake in DESFA.

However, due to the failure of selling 17 percent stake to European companies, SOCAR may increase the proposed stake to 25 percent by keeping 41 percent stake in DESFA, writes Greek mass media.

SOCAR won a tender in December 2013 on the sale of 66-percent share in DESFA for 400 million euros. The European Commission started an inquiry into the compliance of the deal on acquisition of a stake in DESFA with the EU’s regulations in November 2014.

Currently, the deal is being considered by European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, and the procedure will continue until the end of the year.

The privatization of DESFA is delayed due to the fact that the EC opposes to the transfer of a majority stake in gas operator to SOCAR. The European Commission does not want the control package of such a big Transmission System transferred to the hands of non-EU country, but remain under the Greek control.

Baku has earlier claimed that from Azerbaijan's perspective, there was no conflict of interest in acquiring a majority stake in DESFA as the gas owner to be pumped through the SGC was not Azerbaijan, but the Shah-Deniz Consortium.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

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