CAPITAL: Athens

MONETARY UNIT: Drachma

REFINING CAPACITY: 387,500 b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: 6,300 b/d

OIL RESERVES: 10 million bbl

GAS RESERVES: 310 bcf

Hellenic Petroleum SA, Greece`s state-run oil company, ordered a $3.4 million feasibility study on a pipeline for Caspian Sea oil that would bypass the Bosporus Strait and compete with a trans-Turkey proposal.

Hellenic and the Brown & Root engineering unit of Halliburton Co. planned to study a 42-in., 255,000 b/d line from Bulgaria`s Black Sea port of Burgas with Greece`s Mediterranean port of Alexandroupolis 186 miles away. Completion of the study was due by late 1999.

A Bosporus bypass would cost about $690 million, compared with the proposed $3.5 billion pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey.

Hellenic, Greece`s privately owned Latsis and Kopeluzos groups, and the Greek, Russian, and Bulgarian governments would form the TransBalkan Oil Pipeline Co. to build the project.

In a separate project, Shell International and Public Gas Corp. of Greece signed a pact to study the feasibility of transporting gas from Turkmenistan to Greece.

The agreement was part of a larger project between Shell and Turkmenistan involving transport of Turkmen gas to Turkey and on to Europe. To be included in the study was the possibility of importing LNG at a terminal at Revithousa.

The International Energy Agency urged the Greek government to separate itself from its energy companies. It said state-owned companies controlled 60% of the oil products market and all of the natural gas market, even after the government sold 23% of Hellenic Petroleum SA to the public.

Other developments

Two international consortia had signed deals to explore four blocks in western Greece, three onshore and one offshore. The state-owned Public Petroleum Corporation of Greece had a 12% interest in each group.

An Enterprise Oil Ltd. consortium was selected for an onshore block of 4,200 sq km in the northern Epirus region, south of Albania, and another block in the Peloponnese.

The group planned to spend $26 million to explore in the Peloponnese and $20 million for Epirus.

Triton planned to spend $26 million to explore a block in the western Gulf of Patras and $35 million on a block in the western part of mainland Greece.

Greece`s development ministry said that the oil reserves found could be large enough to cover about 20% of the country`s oil needs and produce total revenue for the government of $1.5 billion.

Denison Mines Ltd. planned to drill two wildcats on a license southwest of the existing oil fields in Greece.

It said a 155 sq km 3D seismic program located four oil and gas prospects, two of them large reef complexes, in addition to two prospects identified near Prinos field.

Hellenic Petroleum SA and Motor Oil Hellas (MOH) awarded Institut Francais du Petrole contracts to adapt Greek refining capacity to produce fuels that meet EU sulfur and benzene specifications.