Brussels, 07/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 7 December, the European Commission announced that it had opened a formal investigation to determine whether three producers of ethanol manipulated the ethanol benchmarks published by the price monitoring body, Platts. It has concerns that the Spanish company Abengoa S.A, Alcogroup SA of Belgium and Sweden's Lantmännen ek för, along with their subsidiaries, agreed for instance to present or support quotations with the aim of pushing the benchmarks down and, hence, ethanol prices up.
Ethanol is a form of alcohol produced from biomass, which is mainly added to petrol and used as a biofuel for certain motor vehicles. If these practices are confirmed, they distort competition and harm the energy objectives of the EU by driving up the prices of renewable energies, in this case bio fuels used in transport. This could hamper the use of biofuels as a substitute for fossil energies, which would have negative consequences for both consumers and the environment. The Commission's investigation started with unannounced inspections carried out in May 2013, and then in October 2014 and March 2015. In a separate investigation, the Commission is also examining whether bioethanol producers or traders set prices or divided up the markets and clients. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)