EIB, Motor Oil Hellas agree to develop a network of EV charging, hydrogen stations

The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Friday announced an agreement to allocate a 40-million-euro loan, with a 10-year duration, to Greece-based refinery group Motor Oil, co-financing the latter’s plan to field an extensive network of EV charging and hydrogen fuel stations throughout the east Mediterranean country.

The innovative investment, the biggest-ever reported for Greece, envisioned roughly 3,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the country.

The hydrogen fuel infrastructure will include one electrolyser for hydrogen production, hydrogen trailers, a feeding terminal to load the trailers, as well as hydrogen refueling stations.

The loan agreement was signed at EIB’s headquarters in Luxembourg on Friday by Ioannis Kaltsas, the head of the EIB’s investment team for Greece and Cyprus, and Petros Tzannetakis, Deputy Managing Director and CFO of Motor Oil Group.

“We are very pleased today for the closing of this agreement with the European Investment Bank. This is another important step for the Motor Oil Group, towards the energy transition in the current challenging energy environment,” said Petros Tzannetakis, Motor Oil Group Deputy Managing Director.

“We are committed to creating extraordinary results and providing added value through strategic coalitions. For the past 50 years, Motor Oil has been identified with energy. Our priority is to ensure the energy sufficiency of Greece while at the same time meeting the needs for alternative energy sources and green fuels, important for our country’s energy autonomy,” he said.

“The Zero Emissions Vehicle market, including electric and hydrogen vehicles, is at a very early stage of development in Greece and through the financing of this innovative project, which features sustainability and environmental characteristics, the EIB will support the transformation of the road transport in the direction of hydrogen and electric mobility and increased sustainability, while also providing a signal to stimulate further funding from commercial banks on similar projects,” according to Kaltsas.

An estimated 49 percent of the project investment will be located on the Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T). Additionally, it is estimated that 100 percent of the network will be deployed in less developed and transition cohesion regions. The charging stations will be public, with open access.

Over the last decade the EIB has allocated eight billion euros for private sector business investment across Greece.