The European Commission on Friday extended the deadline by 10 working days, in a view for its review of Greek refiner Motor Oil's bid to buy 720 gas stations in Greece from Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The main reason for the extension in the probe deadline accounts to a national competition authority taking permission to acquire the review.

The competition watchdog of the 27-nation EU, the Commission is revealed to extend the deadline in order to consider a referral request, a list of planned mergers under consideration by the Commission showed.

The commission now possess a time period till March 17 to decide whether it wants to pass the responsibility of the probe on to the national authority.