Brussels, 27/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the acquisition by Royal Dutch/Shell of the German oil and petrochemical products firm DEA (RWE group), as well as the combination of the petrochemicals businesses of Britain's BP Plc and the German company Veda (E.ON group), under strict conditions. Indeed, the two operations would have led to the creation of a collective dominant position by Shell/DEA and BP/Veda on the ethylene transport market, an important petrochemicals product used in a wide range of application, , on the "ARG+" pipeline network that connects the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (see EUROPE of 25 august, p.5). The two operations would have had negative effects on this already very concentrated market as the two merged companies would have had control of the largest part of the ethylene market and would not have been faced with equivalently powerful competitors. So as to overcome these problems, Shell has undertaken to grant third parties access to its import terminal of Moerdijk in the Netherlands, for a total volume of ethylene amounting to 250 kilotonnes a year for ten years. This proposal will allow to introduce onto the ARG market important additional volumes of ethylene from competitive and independent sources, and, for the first time, third parties will b able to import ethylene in the long term, at competitive prices. For their part, BP and E.ON have undertaken to sell two of their three BP/Veba shares in the ARG network and guarantee access to a connection pipeline currently controlled by Veba and that connects the ARG network to ethylene consumers located in Herne (West Germany). The sale of these two shares in ARG will fully eliminate the decisive influence of BP/Veba over the company ARG whereas access o the pipeline will enable providers in place to compete to attract the clientele throughout the ARG area.