Domestic oil refiners and their employees have been indicted on charges of colluding to artificially inflate oil prices following the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran conflict.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office has indicted four domestic oil refining companies for violating the Fair Trade Act.
The companies involved are HD Hyundai Oilbank, SK Energy, GS Caltex, and S-Oil.
Key officials, including the head of the pricing department, a manager, and the head of the legal office at HD Hyundai Oilbank, as well as the head of the domestic sales division at GS Caltex, have also been indicted on charges including violations of the Fair Trade Act.
Prosecutors estimate that the direct collusion between HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy amounted to 14.2 trillion won. When accounting for GS Caltex and S-Oil raising their prices in reference to the two companies, the total anti-competitive impact is estimated to be worth 26 trillion won.
The investigation revealed that pricing department managers at HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy colluded on the timing and scale of oil product price hikes immediately following the outbreak of the war.
Evidence also surfaced indicating that HD Hyundai Oilbank employees had been consistently exchanging price information with SK Energy executives and staff even before the war began.
At the time of the U.S.-Iran conflict, the refiners held significant stockpiles of crude oil, meaning there was no reason for prices to surge. Nevertheless, all the companies raised their supply prices to an unprecedented scale.
Employees in the pricing departments of GS Caltex and S-Oil followed the price hikes set by HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy.
During this process, messages exchanged in group chats included comments such as, "As expected, a company that feeds off war. Long live Trump," and "It looks like we will make 2 trillion won this year."
Furthermore, the investigation found that the four major refiners used their dominant market position after signing exclusive purchase agreements with independent gas stations to unilaterally impose prices and force the stations to purchase all their petroleum products exclusively from them.
This prevented gas stations from comparing prices and sourcing petroleum products through more affordable distribution channels.
Prosecutors indicted all four oil refiners after confirming that they maintained contractual structures that imposed various disadvantages, such as massive damage claims, on stations that violated these terms.
Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Kim Na-on | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
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