Hellenic Petroleum

The Greek stock market has now chalked up four declining sessions out of four so far in November, only on Wednesday the closing auctions failed to rein in the losses incurred by the benchmark. The banks index took quite a hit, tumbling almost 5 percent.

October was another month of growth for the main index of the Greek bourse, leading to gains of 1.63 percent. Almost half of that growth came through Thursday's advance, which was once again led by bank stocks. Meager though the monthly growth may seem, it has taken the benchmark's gains since the start of the year to almost 44 percent.

Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum (HELPE) played down reports on Thursday of a potentially large gas find off Crete, saying speculation was premature.
Citing a senior executive from HELPE, Greek media had reported that the refiner had indications for estimated gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet (tcf) off Crete, based on past seismic data.

Seismic research conducted by Hellenic Petroleum (HELPE), the country's biggest oil refiner, has indicated the possibility of the existence of a large reserve of natural gas in Greece, similar to Egypt's gigantic Zohr gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The banks index at Athinon Avenue on Thursday came off Wednesday's 14-month highs, but the closing auctions served to ensure the benchmark ended in the black despite losing stocks' clear lead over the climbers. The market appears to have already factored in a credit rating upgrade expected on Friday night by Standard & Poor's.

The government is waiting for the price of Hellenic Petroleum shares to rise before approving the launch of the process to sell part of the 35 percent stake it controls in the oil company through the stock market.

Unlike most of its eurozone counterparts, which appeared particularly nervous due to the raging international trade wars, Athinon Avenue demonstrated resilience on Friday, again edging higher, although this time turnover was in line with the weather in Athens, reminiscent of the dog days of summer. This resilience was also reflected in Greek bond yields, which dived to new historic lows.

The banks index at Athinon Avenue enjoyed a second consecutive day of gains in excess of 4 percent on Friday, building not only on the advance of the Heracles plan for the securitization of bad loans, but also on the upward momentum observed in foreign stock markets. That also led to the benchmark attaining growth just shy of 2 percent.

The price of heating oil, which will go on sale nationwide on October 15, is expected to start at 1.02 euros per liter, according to the estimates of sellers based on international oil prices and the euro/dollar exchange rate.

Over 30 areas have been identified for hydrocarbon exploration in the Ionian Sea and off the coast of western and southern Crete, the state-run Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) reported on Sunday.

The map of "plots" was presented by Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management chief Yiannis Basias at an energy conference on the Eastern Mediterranean, ANA-MPA said.