EMEA News
Investigation into Oil Price Fixing Widens
European regulators probing possible price fixing by oil companies are moving forward with the investigation, seeking information from a number of trading houses, Bloomberg reports.
The investigation is seeking to discover whether energy companies Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, and Statoil ASA manipulated the prices of crude oil, refined oil products, and biofuels.
"The more records they ask for, the more records they get and the more firms that might get caught up in this," said Craig Pirrong, director of the University of Houston's Global Energy Management Institute.
"We're talking about a substantial fraction of the world oil trade being involved here."
The regulators sought information from a number of companies that are not under investigation, including Glencore Xstrata Plc, Gunvor Group Ltd., Vitol Group, and other firms with Swiss offices.
Investigators also questioned Platts, which publishes benchmark prices that are widely used in crude and oil-product transactions.
"Oil gets regulators' attention because trading is extremely complicated and not at all transparent, while the price of crude is something that affects everyone," said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB.
The European Union (EU) has said some companies may have reported distorted prices and prevented other companies from submitting their own prices over a period that may go back as far as 2002, USA Today reports.
There is no deadline for the investigation, which could take years.
