Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries S.A. () is a petroleum industry company based in Greece focusing on oil refining and trading. It is a leading force in its sector in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean.
Motor Oil Hellas was founded on May 7, 1970, by Vardis Vardinogiannis and Georgios Paraschos Aleksandridis. It is headquartered in Marousi, Greece. Since 1972 Vardis J. Vardinoyannis has been chairman and managing director. The company has over 2,000 employees. Despite the Greek crisis in 2015, the company had thrived.
In 2020 Motor Oil Hellas gave TechnipFMC a significant engineering, procurement, and construction management services contract. The new naphtha complex in Greece will have three new processing units and a capacity of . The construction work is scheduled to be complete in 2021.
Through its Korinthos refinery, Motor Oil controls 35% of the refining sector in Greece. The company operates the second-largest refiner (Corinth Refinery) in Europe and the Cairo-based oil and gas exploration and production facilities in Egypt. It also owns the Avin, Shell and Cyclon chain of fuel stations in Greece, more than 2,000, along with a host of other gas and energy-related businesses.
In 2025, Motor Oil Hellas inaugurated GreeceâÂÂs first hydrogen refuelling station in Agioi Theodoroi, operated by its subsidiary Avin Oil. The station is the first in Europe to be co-financed (50%) by the EUâÂÂs Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) â Transport programme, as part of a â¬3 million investment. The facility currently sources green hydrogen from Austria, with plans to use hydrogen from a nearby 50MW production plant under development by Motor Oil.
Construction of a 30MW electrolyser has begun at the Korinthos refinery, with an additional 20MW ordered from Sweden-based Metacon in early 2025. The overall project aims to produce up to 60,000 tonnes of hydrogen and 25,000 tonnes of e-methanol annually by 2029. The European Commission approved a â¬111.7 million subsidy in February 2025 to support the hydrogen development project.
Motor Oil Hellas has numerous subsidiaries, such as:
Motor Oil's majority shareholder is two holding companies (Petroventure and Motor Oil Limited with 40.97%), that belongs to the prominent Greek family of Vardinogiannis, the rest of its shares are available to the public through a float on the Athens and the London Stock Exchange.