MOSCOW, December 28 - RAPSI. The antimonopoly service has fined LUKOIL $19.5 million within the "third wave" of antitrust cases against Russian oil giants, the watchdog told PRIME news agency.

LUKOIL is the fourth out of five oil companies which have been fined for manipulating fuel prices in 2011.

"LUKOIL has been fined 609 million rubles ($19.5 million)," the Federal Antimonopoly Service said.
The antimonopoly watchdog already fined several oil companies earlier this week. Rosneft was fined 1.75 billion rubles ($56.2 million); Gazprom Neft - 979.3 million rubles ($31.5 million), and Bashneft -778 million rubles ($25 million). The watchdog has yet to impose a penalty on TNK-BP which was found guilty of fuel price manipulations last week.

LUKOIL said in its report in November that the Federal Antimonopoly Service increased the total amount of penalties to be imposed on oil companies within the "third wave" of antitrust cases from $17 to $27 million as of September 30.

The third wave was initiated in February 2011. The watchdog found Rosneft, LUKOIL, Gazprom Neft and TNK-BP guilty of breaking the antitrust law and manipulating diesel and jet fuel prices in the period between the fourth quarter 2010 and early 2011.