Barrel Brent passes the $ 85 mark

The price of Brent oil, the benchmark for Europe, surpassed the threshold of $ 85 per barrel on Friday for the first time since 2018, fueling pressures on energy prices and inflation.

However, after the opening of the markets of the Old Continent, the price of a barrel of Brent crude eased slightly to 84.66 dollars, 0.80 % above the level at the close of Thursday.

In the case of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, a benchmark for the United States, a barrel was trading at $ 82.30, reaching highs since October 2014, although later it partially yielded and was trading at $ 81.98.

The rise in energy prices, coupled with supply bottlenecks, has caused a strong rebound in inflation, which in the case of the US pushed industrial producer prices by 8.6 % in September compared to the same month of 2020, which represents the highest year-on-year rise in wholesale inflation since annual data began to be collected in 2010.

The strong increase in producer prices is added to the sharp rise in consumer inflation, which in September reached 5.4 %, one tenth above the previous month’s reading and thus repeating the highest since 2008, as was the case in the months of June and July.

Inflationary pressures have also been noted in China, where inflation in the wholesale sector reached 10.7 % year-on-year, after rising 9.5 % the previous month, representing the largest increase in wholesale inflation in the entire historical series, dating back to 1995, as reported by the National Statistical Office (ONE).

Source: dpa