ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey plans to start pumping natural gas to Greece on July 12 through a new gas pipeline, a senior energy ministry official said yesterday. Turkey hopes to pump 125 million cubic meters to Greece this year through this pipeline, the official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. “If a big difficulty does not arise, the first natural gas export from Turkey to Greece will be sent on July 12,” the official said. Construction of the pipeline is planned to be completed in late June. The $300 million, 285-kilometer (177-mile) Turkey-Greece pipeline, which will be extended to Italy, has an around a 12-billion-cubic meter annual capacity. From 2008 until 2020 Turkey plans to sell 737 million cubic meters annually to Greece.

The EU’s statistics agency Eurostat may approve as early as July Greece’s revision of its 2001-2006 GDP by 25 percent, a senior Greek government official told Reuters yesterday. “It’s possible that the GDP revision will be approved in early July,” the official said. “I have no indication that all 25 percent of it will not be approved.” Last year, Greece surprised its EU partners by saying it was revising its gross domestic product, estimated at about 200 billion euros in 2006, by 25 percent to include parts of the black economy for the 2001-2006 period. “A Eurostat team will visit Greece sometime in June to ask any relevant questions,” the official said. (Reuters)

Aegean Airlines, Greece’s second-largest air carrier, is seeking regulatory approval for an initial public offering (IPO) to list its shares on the Athens bourse by the end of June, it said yesterday. Aegean intends to offer about 17.8 million new shares to Greek and international investors, the company said. Aegean has appointed Citigroup Global Markets Ltd as sole manager and bookrunner of the international offering, while National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank are lead managers and joint bookrunners of the domestic offering, it said. (Reuters)

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest retail bank, is preparing a 1.1-billion-euro ($1.50 billion) offer for Turkey’s Oyak Bank, Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported yesterday. Intesa Sanpaolo is carrying out due diligence on the bank and plans to finalize the acquisition of Oyak Bank by the end of May, Il Messaggero reported. The acquisition would fit with Intesa Sanpaolo’s declared ambition to add a new country to the total of about 10 Central and Eastern European nations where it operates. (Reuters)