COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -French energy regulator CRE has fined Norway’s Equinor and its trading arm Danske Commodities a total of 12 million euros ($12.5 million) for violation of wholesale gas market rules.
Equinor and Danske, which were fined 4 million euros and 8 million euros respectively, will appeal against the ruling, the Norwegian group said.
The CRE’s announcement on Thursday said it had imposed the fines for two regulatory breaches in connection with the booking of annual gas transmission capacity related to the interconnection point between the French and Spanish gas networks in 2019 and 2020.
The CRE said Equinor and Danske had cooperated in the first round of an annual gas capacity auction in a way that resulted in a lower price for the trading business, a claim the company denied.
“We have no evidence of collusion and therefore disagree with the CRE’s decision,” the company said.
“Equinor maintains that Equinor and Danske Commodities acted independently of each other, and that Equinor booked capacity solely to retain access to the Spanish capacity booking platform and thereby secure access to the Spanish gas market,” it added.
($1 = 0.9599 euros)
(Reporting by Louise Breusch RasmussenEditing by Essi Lehto, Terje Solsvik and David Goodman)
