EU: No hard predictions for end of Commission’s oil probe, says Almunia

In a statement dated July 23 but published Tuesday, the European Commission announced it is still in an “early stage” its investigation of the EU’s oil market, which took off last May when regulators raided oil companies Statoil, BP, Shell and Argos Energies, as well as price publisher Platts. European Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement to a European Parliament lawmaker that the regulator is looking to wrap-up the investigation as soon as possible, but due to various issues including “the complexity of the case, the extent to which the undertakings concerned cooperate with the commission and the exercise of the rights of defense,” the length of the case cannot be predetermined. Three unnamed sources told reporters that companies asked to provide information to the regulator include Glencore Xstrata, Vitol Group and Hunvor Group. Regulators throughout the globe have been looking closely at commodity pricing benchmarks ever since the widespread scandal of the alleged manipulation of LIBOR, the bench mark for interest rates.

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