MOSCOW, July 9 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, has been found to have violated antitrust law, Russia's antimonopoly regulator announced on Thursday.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said the crude producer had abused its dominant position on the gasoline, jet fuel and diesel markets in the first half of 2009.
"The commission of the Federal Antimonopoly Service has declared Gazprom Neft guilty of violating Point 1 of Article 10 of the law on the protection of competition by abusing its dominant position on the market," the FAS said in a statement on its website.
According to the FAS, Gazprom Neft withdrew products from the market to increase prices, creating discriminatory conditions for some petrochemical dealers.
The regulator warned that Gazprom Neft would have to pay a fine equivalent from 1% to 15% of its 2008 sales, and said it would take the company's earlier violations into account.
The company said it would contest the regulator's decision.
"The decision by the FAS showed once again a lack of transparent rules that could be clear to all market players," deputy CEO Yelena Ilyukhina said on Wednesday.
Gazprom Neft, Russia's fifth largest crude producer, posted a 5.8% decrease in oil output to 30.8 million metric tons (226.4 mln bbl) last year.
It was fined 1.35 billion rubles ($37 million) in November 2008 for keeping artificially high prices, although the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court has since overturned the FAS ruling.
