The Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Panagiotis Lafazanis has dismissed reports that he instructed Hellenic Petroleum to prepare an emergency plan to secure the country’s petroleum supplies for nine months, should Greece be forced out of the euro.
Mr. Lafazanis argued that the reports regarding his instruction to be the “figment of a morbid imagination”, adding that ELPE already has a policy of maintaining and planning petroleum reserves. Anything else, he added, is “aimed at terrorizing the Greek people” and only serve “unacceptable intentions”.
The managing director for ELPE Grigoris Stergioulis told the Athens-Macedonia News Agency that European directives provide that his company must secure fuel reserve for 90 days, adding that it is standard practice for companied to secure reserves to last more than three months.
According to a report in Ta Nea, ELPE’s rumored emergency plan involved three phases. At first the country’s strategic three-month reserves would be used. In the second phase the refineries would purchase petroleum to last for a further three months. In the final phase of the plan, ELPE would acquire crude oil and pay suppliers with refined products.
