Oil giants probed over ‘price fixing’

The European Commission said a series of unannounced inspections were carried out by its officials on oil companies yesterday.

BP, Shell and Norwegian firm Statoil all confirmed they were facing checks.

A spokesman for BP said: “We are co-operating fully with the investigation and unable to comment further at this time.”

Shell said its offices in London and Rotterdam had been visited.

A spokesman said: “We can confirm that Shell companies are currently assisting the European Commission in an inquiry into trading activities. We are fully co-operating with the investigation. For legal reasons we cannot make any further comment at this stage.”

Norwegian company Statoil also confirmed its office in Stavanger was inspected.

A statement from the European Commission said officials had carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of “several companies active in and providing services to the crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels sectors”.

“The commission has concerns that the companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices to a Price Reporting Agency to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products,” it said.

“Furthermore, the commission has concerns that the companies may have prevented others from participating in the price assessment process, with a view to distorting published prices.”

It said even small distortions of assessed prices could have a “huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers”.

Unannounced inspections were a preliminary step to investigating suspected anti-competitive practices and did not mean that the companies were guilty of any wrongdoing, it added.