South Korea Indicts Four Refiners for Oil Price Collusion

South Korean prosecutors indicted four major oil refiners on Monday, accusing them of colluding to push up domestic fuel prices after the Middle East conflict. HD Hyundai Oilbank, SK Energy, GS Caltex, and S-Oil violated the nation's fair trade act, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Prosecutors said HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy coordinated on 14.2 trillion won ($9.2 billion) of oil sales, fixing the timing and scale of price increases. GS Caltex and S-Oil followed the same pattern, bringing the total anticompetitive impact to roughly 26 trillion won, according to the report.

The investigation started after domestic fuel prices jumped sharply following the U.S.–Iran conflict. Pricing executives at two of the refiners orchestrated the hikes, and the practice was not a one-off event but a systemic pattern that surfaced during a global crisis, prosecutors said.

Shares of the refiners rose anyway. S-Oil gained 6.08%. SK Innovation, the parent company of SK Energy, advanced 1.58%. HD Hyundai added 1.21%, and GS Holdings, which jointly controls GS Caltex with Chevron, rose 6.99%. Chevron itself holds a Mixed Alpha Score of 41 out of 100.

In March, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned on social media that oil refiners and corporations engaged in price-fixing would face legal consequences, vowing to use all available measures against unfair business practices.

S-Oil declined to comment. Hyundai Oilbank, SK Energy, and GS Caltex could not be reached for comment. The indictment covers roughly 26 trillion won of sales across the four companies, a figure that dwarfs most prior antitrust cases in the country's energy sector.

The prosecution's case rests on evidence of direct price coordination between executives at HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy, with the other two refiners following the same pricing moves. The refiners have not yet filed a formal response in court.