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Oil price could have been rigged like Libor forcing drivers to pay over the odds for petrolBy Damien Gayle
PUBLISHED: 06:25, 16 July 2012 | UPDATED: 15:44, 16 July 2012

Drivers may have been paying over the odds for petrol as traders are likely to have tried to manipulate oil prices in the same way as interest rates, an official report has warned.
The reliability of oil prices has been cast into doubt by a report for the G20 which warns that the market is wide open to 'manipulation or distortion'.
Market players like banks, oil companies and hedge funds have an 'incentive' distort the market and are likely to try to report false prices to boost their trades, the report said.
Rigged? Oil traders may have been rigging the market rates to boost their trades just as bankers rigged the Libor rate
The wholesale price of oil is linked to the price at the pump by benchmarks which retailers use to decide how much to pay for future supplies.
These rates are calculated by private data-gathering companies based on submissions from firms which trade oil on a daily basis, like banks, hedge funds and energy companies.
But like Libor - the interest rate measure that Barclays was earlier this month found to have rigged - the market is not regulated. Instead it relies on the honesty of firms to submit accurate data.
Robert Halfon, leader of a group of 100 MPs calling for lower fuel prices, said the matter 'needs to be looked at by the Bank of England urgently'.
He told the Daily Telegraph: 'We need to know whether the oil price has been manipulated in a similar way to Libor. This impacts on millions of people all round the country concerned about the price of petrol at the pumps.'
More...U.S. prepare criminal case against banks that fixed interest rates in global scandal
U.S. 'warned King on rate-rigging in 2008': Pressure on Bank of England to explain who knew what and when
LIBOR scandal set to rock U.S. as experts warn it could be 'the biggest consumer fraud in history'

The G20 report, published last month by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), warned that traders have opportunities to influence oil prices for their own profit.
The whole market is 'voluntary', it points out, meaning that players can choose which trades to make public.
This creates an opportunity for a trader to 'submit a partial picture, i.e. an incomplete set of its trades in order to influence the assessment to the trader�s advantage.'
The major price reporting agencies, Platts and Argus, argue that they employ journalists to investigate data and weed out any false reports submitted by oil traders.
But the IOSCO has pointed out that this system relies heavily on the 'experience and training' of journalists to make a judgement about what the oil price should be.
U.S. regulators have already warned that the rate-rigging scandal could spread to the oil market and British regulators carrying out the Wheatley Review into the Libor scandal indicated this week that they will look into whether markets were manipulated.
Unregulated: The wholesale price of oil is linked to the price at the pump by benchmarks based on how much traders report getting for a barrel
Lord Oakeshott, the outspoken former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, last night joined a chorus of politicians calling on the government to take heed of the latest warnings.
'Clearly it�s right we must shine a light on how other crucial benchmark prices are reported, especially when they affect the cost of living for millions of motorists,' he told the Telegraph.
There have already been warnings that the price reporting agencies may not be as disinterested as they claim.
Like the ratings agencies which evaluated sub-prime mortgage debt, the oil price reporting companies take fees from banks and oil companies to supply information.
Simon Lewis, chief executive of the Global Financial Markets Association, said this meant they companies could face 'incentives' to favour big clients.

EVERYTHING IN THE UK IS RIGGED ALL DONE BY THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE GOVERNMENT.
WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW, REBELLION BECOMES YOUR DUTY.

2Anne · Joined: 04 May 2008 Posts: 399 Location: Norfolk

Every time you fill up your car you are donating money to Islam. Saudi Arabis is awash with money and hard line Islam. The huge donations they make for new mosques in the UK are sourced from oil.
Arabs visit the Uk every year and go on massive shopping sprees spending million of our pounds. What huge luck that a backward race like the Arabs find themselves sitting on a huge,profitable oil slick.
The truth is they can charge any price they like and the sooner we get rid of petrol in our cars and oil in our generators the better things will be.