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* Raids carried out in two countries on Tuesday
* Raids follow earlier inspections into oil products,biofuels (Adds Commission comments, reference to oil priceinvestigation)
By Philip Blenkinsop
BRUSSELS, Oct 9 (Reuters) - The European Commission hasraided ethanol companies in two EU countries as part ofinvestigations into alleged price-fixing.
The Commission, which acts as the competition watchdog inthe 28-member bloc, said on Thursday it had concerns thatcompanies may have colluded in submitting price information usedto set industry benchmarks for trading in Europe and globally.
"The importance of these benchmarks and the absence ofregulation may leave scope for anti-competitive behaviourleading to price distortions," the Commission said in astatement.
"Even small distortions may have a significant impact onprices, potentially harming consumers," it said.
It did not specify the two countries in which the raids hadbeen carried out on Tuesday and did not say what companies wereinvolved.
The Commission said its raids followed inspections in May2013 of the offices of oil majors Shell, BP andStatoil as part of a probe into suspected manipulationof oil and biofuel prices.
No one from Statoil was immediately available for comment,while BP and Shell said their offices had not been raided in theCommission's latest inspections.
The Commission said in May it was investigating thecompanies in relation to their submission of prices to Platts,the world's leading oil pricing agency and part of McGraw HillFinancial Inc.
The Commission said it would not make public at this stagethe names of the companies visited in the latest raids and saidthe fact that a company had been raided did not mean it wasguilty of anti-competitive behaviour.
Authorities have sharply raised scrutiny of financialbenchmarks around the world since slapping large fines on someof the world's biggest banks for rigging two interest ratebenchmarks, Libor and Euribor. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London andNerijus Adomaitis in Oslo; Editing by David Holmes)
