(Adds Lukoil's comment, details)
SOFIA, April 6 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's anti-monopoly watchdograided the offices of two fuel retailers as part of aninvestigation into the country's only oil refinery and sevenfuel retailers for possible cartel agreements to fix prices ofpetrol and diesel.
"The Commission for Protection of Competition raided severaloffices of Lukoil and Rompetrol in thecapital Sofia," the commission's spokesman said on Wednesday."Our goal is to try to collect as much evidence as possible."
Rompetrol declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. Aspokeswoman for Lukoil's Bulgarian unit said the company wasfully cooperating with the anti-monopoly commission.
"We are open and transparent. We call for unbiased and equaltreatment, and checks of all players in the fuel retail market,"the spokeswoman, Maya Zhekova, said.
In February, the watchdog started investigating theBulgarian units of Lukoil and Rompetrol as well as units ofRoyal Dutch Shell, OMV, Hellenic Petroleum, Nis Petrol, majority owned by Russia's Gazprom Neft, and Bulgarian Petrol.
It has also launched a probe into the Lukoil NeftochimBurgas oil refinery regarding possible abuse of its dominantposition related to the sale of its fuels on the local market.
The investigation followed complaints by Bulgarians overhigh fuel costs despite a plunge in global oil prices and arequest by Prime Minister Boiko Borisov that the competitionauthority hasten checks on the fuel sector.
The competition authority launched a full investigationafter an analysis of the EU country's fuel sector between 2013and 2015. It found that the retail price policies of the sevencompanies were very similar and too slow to reflect falls inwholesale and production prices. (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov and Tsvetelia Tsolova; editingby Jon Boyle)
