AKTOR buys into Greek LNG route

AKTOR Group signed a framework agreement on 9 July to buy 50% of Dioriga Gas from Motor Oil, the company behind a planned floating LNG terminal in Greece's Corinthian Gulf (Protothema). For now, this is still a first-stage deal: the basic terms are agreed, but definitive contracts, board approvals and regulatory clearance still have to follow.

Even so, the move matters. Two of Greece's largest industrial groups are putting weight behind a proposition that Maltese readers will recognise from our own energy debates: infrastructure only pays off if the market actually needs the capacity. In this case, the bet is that Southeast Europe needs another route for imported gas. The unanswered question is whether buyers north of Greece will pay enough to make that route work.

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

Dioriga is planned as an FSRU, a floating storage and regasification unit. In plain terms, it is a ship-sized facility where LNG tankers unload liquefied gas, which is then warmed back into normal gas and pushed into pipelines. Motor Oil says the project has the required permits and studies (Enikos). What has not appeared publicly is independent confirmation of a construction start date or binding customer bookings.

The commercial case rests on the Vertical Corridor, a south-to-north gas route treated by the EU as a diversification priority under CESEC, the Central and South Eastern Europe Energy Connectivity framework (European Commission). The idea is simple enough: gas arrives in Greece by ship, is regasified, and then moves north through interconnectors towards Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.

That route now has capital behind it. In the first long-term capacity auctions at Sidirokastro, the Greek-Bulgarian border point, buyers reserved more than 45% of available capacity for the 2026/27 gas year and the following four years (Protothema English). These bookings are not symbolic. Companies reserve pipeline space when they expect to move gas through it. Metlen booked around 20 GWh/day, while DEPA Commercial and Atlantic SEE LNG Trade took roughly 13 GWh/day between them.

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

Those bookings prove there is demand for the route. They do not yet prove demand for Dioriga itself. Existing Greek entry points are already oversubscribed, and the corridor only became attractive 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 are paid by shippers and then folded into the delivered price paid by buyers. A route that needed a tariff cut of almost 40% before companies committed is still operating on tight economics.

Croatia and Romania already compete for the same buyers

Dioriga would not enter an empty market. Croatia's Krk LNG terminal has been operating since 2021 and has expanded to 6.1 bcm/year of capacity (Poslovni). Romania's Neptun Deep offshore field, owned equally by OMV Petrom and Romgaz, expects first gas from 2027, with reported plateau output of around 8 bcm/year (HotNews).

Both are chasing some of the same landlocked customers Greece wants to reach. That is the real competition: not whether Southeast Europe wants security of supply, but which route gives buyers the cheapest and most reliable gas once all transport costs are included.

Who gains, who pays

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

If it fails commercially, shareholders take the first hit. But gas infrastructure risk rarely stays neatly inside the company accounts. Bulgaria has already seen how underused capacity can end up on the public ledger. Its Botas-Bulgargaz arrangement reportedly locked in €500,000 per day in fixed capacity payments regardless of actual use, until the two sides froze the contract for 15 months (3e-news, BTA). Where terminals or pipelines carry take-or-pay clauses, meaning the buyer pays whether or not the gas is used, governments often absorb losses through regulated tariffs. Consumers then cover the bill.

Hungary and Slovakia, the furthest markets downstream, show the weakest pull. There is 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 that alternative (Denník E).

The AKTOR-Motor Oil deal is a bet that Southeast Europe's energy problem is moving from finding gas to building routes that companies can use at a competitive price. The corridor has real bookings and tariff momentum. What it still lacks is proof that the region needs this terminal, in this location, on top of the infrastructure already operating or under construction.