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Oil refinery towers in Karlsruhe (symbol image)
Photo: Christoph Schmidt / dpa
Potential market manipulation in the oil market: Federal Cartel Office head Andreas Mundt has expressed the suspicion that the oil price in the refineries may be decoupled from the crude oil price.
"We're looking at this very closely in the fuel market at the moment," said the competition watchdog on Wednesday on the Welt television station.
However, he did not want to say whether this was already an indication of abuse of market power by mineral oil companies.
In the fuel market there are "very strong price fluctuations," said Mundt.
"We have a very transparent market at the petrol station level, but we also see that the prices at the refineries are perhaps a bit decoupled from the price of crude oil." The Cartel Office now wants to take a closer look.
It is often difficult to understand why individual products become more expensive in times of war and the corona pandemic, Mundt said.
But that doesn't always have something to do with abuse of market power.
"There are many reasons why price increases can occur," emphasized the head of the authority.
At the moment, for example, many supply chains are interrupted due to the corona situation in China.
ktz/afp