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Rome - Prosecutors in Italy have wrapped up a probe triggered by suspicions that the country's steep petrol prices were the result of manipulation by several large oil firms, media reported Friday.
The results of the investigation into seven companies - ENI, Shell, Esso, Total ERG, Tamoil, Q8 and API - have been sent to legal authorities in Rome and Milan for possible further action.
Italian motorists pay the highest prices at the pump in the European Union, according to the European Commission's directorate general for energy.
The newspaper La Stampa said the Varese prosecutor's office in northern Italy, which conducted the probe at the urging of a consumer group, suspected the oil companies of "carrying out speculative moves to boost the price of fuel at the pump".
But the head of Italy's biggest oil company ENI, Paolo Scaroni, told reporters on Friday the probe was just the latest official scrutiny of what he described as unavoidably high petrol prices.
"There are several reasons fuel prices in Italy are higher than elsewhere in Europe. To name just one, there are 24 000 service stations in Italy compared with 9 000 in Britain with a total equivalent consumption, so these service stations, in Italy, need a bigger margin" to achieve profitability, he said.
He also cited reduced station opening hours, and noted that Italian service stations cannot sell other items, such as newspapers or cigarettes, to augment revenues.
"There is nothing underhanded," he said.
The average price for unleaded petrol in Italy at the end of 2012 was €1.75 per litre ($8.60 per gallon), according to the European Commission's directorate general for energy.
That compared with €1.50 per litre in France, €1.56 per litre in Germany, and €1.63 per litre in Britain, the data showed, according to the Commission's Eurostat statistics office.
