Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece is moving toward its first offshore exploratory gas well in decades, with an ExxonMobil-led group due to drill in the Ionian Sea in spring 2027.
He spoke to the Greek diaspora in New York during the UN General Assembly. He said he was proud the work would start “probably toward spring 2027” and called it the first such operation in Greece since 1970.
The most advanced licence is Block 2 in the north-west Ionian. ExxonMobil, Energean and HelleniQ Energy are preparing the Asopos-1 well. The environmental study is done. Igoumenitsa is the logistics port. The consortium has aimed at early 2027.
Athens has reopened offshore work after years of little activity. It has put out tenders for seismic surveys in the Ionian and south of Crete, on blocks already under licence and on open acreage.
Chevron is due to shoot seismic in the Ionian and south of the Peloponnese and Crete before the end of 2026.
Energy and Environment Minister Stavros Papastavrou met Chevron and ExxonMobil representatives in New York and pitched Greece as an energy hub for the eastern Mediterranean and south-east Europe.
At the same diaspora event Mitsotakis tied energy policy to the next election, likely in spring 2027. Asked about a third term, he said the point was not to “break the record” but to keep changing the country. He said the government must work harder for trust and that it had met most of its 2023 pledges.
Source: To Vima newsroom, 23 September 2026.
