ATHENS, May 27. /TASS/. Russia’s oil major Rosneft and Greece’s Hellenic Petroleum have signed an agreement on key terms of supplies of oil and oil products to Greece.

The signing ceremony was held after the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and in their presence.

Apart from that, the sides signed a number of other documents.

The agreement will bring cooperation with the Greek partners to a new level as it lays the basis for direct contracts with Hellenic Petroleum on supplies of oil and oil products to Greek refineries, Rosneft said in a release. Apart from that, the agreement gives Rosneft a possibility to realize oil products manufactured at Hellenic Petroleum’s oil refineries for bunkering and trading.

The agreement will make it possible for Rosneft to raise economic efficiency of sales of oil and oil products and offer its partner more attractive prices and flexible supplies formats.

"These agreements open up wide perspectives for further development of cooperation with Hellenic Petroleum," Rosneft President Igor Sechin said. "Along with creating an extra channel of product sales, potential direct contracts will help us strengthen positions of Rosneft’s trading division. The Greek partners, in turn, will have a guaranteed channel of supplies of high-quality energy sources at competitive prices."

Hellenic Petroleum is one of Greece’s biggest corporations. Aggregate capacity of its plants in Greece (in Aspropyrgos, Eleusis and Thessaloniki) is 17 million tons, or about 65% of the country’s entire oil refining output.

Imported oil accounts for 100% of Greece’s consumption. The country however exports oil products (15.5 million tons of exports and 3.6 million tons of imports in 2014, according to Erostat) thanks to a diversified oil refinery system, primarily at Hellenic Petroleum facilities. Thus, direct contacts with that company will help Rosneft enhance its positions on international markets.

Russian-Greek ties

 Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that Russian-Greek relations will not depend on time-serving trends in domestic politics and the projects that have been agreed on during the ongoing visit will be implemented.

"I’m pleased to say that in Russia and Greece the question of developing interstate ties has acquired a supra-political nature and is independent of current political trends," Putin said at a meeting with the leader of the country’s largest oppositional conservative party New Democracy Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Putin recalled that other members of the Mitsotakis family were prominent Greek politicians and they invariably contributed to the development of Russian-Greek relations.

"Today’s visit was very successful and business-like; we agreed on many things with the prime minister and had a good, meaningful conversation with the president," Putin said. "We do hope that the representatives of your party in parliament will support today’s initiatives of yours and promote the development of Russian-Greek ties in every way."

Mitsotakis said for his part that when his party was in power in 2004-2009, it accomplished a great deal for the sake of wider bilateral relations.

"Our countries are linked by tight bonds based on common traditions, and I believe it is important we have intra-party agreements. Personally I am very interested in the further buildup of economic relations," he added.