Europe's Oil Market Gets Its Own Price Benchmarks Scandal

Statoil sold a tanker of Norwegian crude valued at about $63 million to BP on May 9. That transaction, which wasn’t subject to any oversight by financial authorities, would help set the price of more than half the world’s oil. The deal was reported to Platts, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial, which uses information from traders and others involved in the market to set benchmarks for oil and related products. Platts’s figures help determine the price refiners pay for crude, which in turn affects what consumers pay for gasoline and diesel fuel.

On May 14, Europe’s top antitrust official, European Union Commissioner for Competition Joaquín Almunia, upended this lightly regulated corner of the market, raiding the offices of Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Statoil and requesting records from some of Europe’s biggest trading houses.