The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Friday announced it has agreed to provide a 40-million-euro 10-year loan to Motor Oil, cofinancing its new investment to develop an extensive network of EV charging and hydrogen stations throughout Greece.

The pioneering investment, the first of its kind on such a scale in Greece, will see the deployment of about 3,000 electric vehicle charging stations for road transport. The hydrogen transport infrastructure will include one electrolyser for hydrogen production, hydrogen trailers, a feeding terminal to load the trailers, as well as hydrogen refuelling stations.

The loan agreement was signed at EIB’s headquarters in Luxembourg on February 17 by Ioannis Kaltsas, head of the EIB’s Investment Team for Greece and Cyprus, and Petros Tzannetakis, deputy managing director of Motor Oil Group.

"We are very pleased 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 Tzannetakis. "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."

An estimated 49% of the project investment will be located on the Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T). Additionally, it is estimated that 100% 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 provided 8 billion euros for private sector business investment across Greece.