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 fuels.
"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."
Lukoil and Rompetrol were not available for immediatecomment.
In February, the watchdog started investigating theBulgarian units of Lukoil and Rompetrol as well as units ofRoyal Dutch Shell, OMV, Hellenic Petroleum, Nis Petrol and Bulgarian Petrol.
It has also launched a probe into the Lukoil NeftochimBurgas oil refinery regarding possible breaches of competitionrules 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 the full investigationafter an analysis of the European Union country's fuel sector between 2013 and 2015. It found that the retail price policiesof the seven companies were very similar and too slow to reflectfalls in wholesale and production prices.
(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Jason Neely)
