AKTOR takes 50% stake in Greek gas terminal

AKTOR Group signed a framework agreement on 9 July to buy half of Dioriga Gas from Motor Oil, the company developing a floating LNG terminal on Greece's Corinthian Gulf (Protothema). The deal is preliminary: basic terms only, still subject to definitive contracts, board approvals and regulatory clearance. But it signals that two of Greece's biggest industrial groups are staking real money on the idea that Southeast Europe needs another way to import gas. The question is whether the region agrees.

The corridor has money behind it. The terminal does not.

The asset is an FSRU (a floating storage and regasification unit), essentially a ship-sized facility where LNG tankers offload liquefied gas, which gets heated back into regular gas and fed into pipelines. Motor Oil says Dioriga has the necessary permits and studies (Enikos). No independent confirmation of a construction start date or binding customer bookings has appeared.

The commercial logic depends on the Vertical Corridor, a south-north gas route the EU treats as a diversification priority under its CESEC framework (Central and South Eastern Europe Energy Connectivity) (European Commission). Gas arrives in Greece by ship, gets regasified, and moves north through interconnectors toward Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.

That route now has real money behind it. In the first long-term capacity auctions at the Greek-Bulgarian border point of Sidirokastro, buyers reserved over 45% of available capacity for the 2026/27 gas year and four years beyond (Protothema English). Capacity bookings matter because companies only pay to reserve pipeline space when they expect to ship gas through it. Metlen booked around 20 GWh/day; DEPA Commercial and Atlantic SEE LNG Trade took roughly 13 GWh/day combined.

Atlantic SEE, a joint venture that is 60% AKTOR-owned, separately booked 4.7 TWh annually in corridor capacity to move U.S. LNG into the region before 2030 (To Vima). It is still trying to convert memoranda with Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine into binding 20-year contracts (Parapolitika).

Those bookings prove demand for the route, not for Dioriga. Existing Greek entry points already face oversubscription. The corridor only became worth booking after operators cut the transit charge from roughly €9.39/MWh to below €6/MWh for the full Greece-to-Ukraine route (Euro2Day, Știripesurse). Those charges land on shippers, who pass them into the delivered price buyers ultimately pay. That the route needed a nearly 40% tariff cut before anyone would commit tells you how tight the economics are.

Croatia and Romania already compete for the same buyers

Dioriga enters a market with working alternatives. Croatia's Krk LNG terminal has operated since 2021 and expanded to 6.1 bcm/year of capacity (Poslovni). Romania's Neptun Deep offshore field, owned 50-50 by OMV Petrom and Romgaz, expects first gas from 2027 with reported plateau output of around 8 bcm/year (HotNews). Both target some of the same landlocked buyers Greece wants to reach.

Who gains, who pays

If Dioriga works, Motor Oil and AKTOR profit, Greek transit infrastructure earns fees, and downstream buyers in Bulgaria, Romania and the western Balkans gain another bargaining chip against existing suppliers.

If it fails commercially, shareholders take the first hit. But the risk does not stop there. Bulgaria knows how underused gas infrastructure gets passed to the public. Its Botas-Bulgargaz arrangement locked in a reported €500,000 per day in fixed capacity payments regardless of actual use, until both sides froze the contract for 15 months (3e-news, BTA). When terminals or pipelines have take-or-pay clauses (where a buyer pays whether or not they use the gas), governments often absorb losses through regulated tariffs. Consumers end up covering the bill.

Hungary and Slovakia, the furthest markets downstream, show the weakest pull. No public evidence that their grid operators or gas traders have committed to the Greek route. Their usual supply runs through TurkStream, and Greek LNG only matters to them if the delivered price beats it (Denník E).

The AKTOR-Motor Oil deal is a bet that Southeast Europe's energy problem is shifting from finding gas to building routes companies can actually use at a competitive price. The corridor has real bookings and real tariff momentum. What it does not yet have is proof that the region needs this terminal, in this location, on top of everything already built or under way.