The combined price increase for extraction of crude oil and natural gas rose by 14.2 percent in June, with the largest increase on natural gas. There are several reasons for this. For natural gas, the increase can among other things be attributed to smaller supplies from Russia in Europe (spglobal.com). Russia have mounted pressure on the EU for them to approve the pipeline Nord Stream 2 through the Baltic Sea into Germany. This drives prices up as gas is to be stored for the upcoming winter. When it comes to the oil, the rise can be attributed both to supply and demand (dn.no). The OPEC countries and their allies, among them Russia, has cooperated well in keeping prices at a high level by very small increases in production. In addition, producers of shale oil in the US are holding back their investments. Also, demand rose more sharply in the tail of the pandemic than expected, also driving prices up.
Small price increase in manufacturing
The growth in PPI was dampened by the manufacturing industries combined having a weak increase of 0.6 percent in June. Most of the industries had price increases, but mostly very small. For example, the important food industry almost had zero growth, with prices only rising by 0.2 percent.
Some industries had a little larger increase, for example the chemical industry and refined petroleum products. They had increases of 1.1 and 3.7 percent, respectively. The metal industry continued the rise from the previous months, for June, the increase was at 3.1 percent.
A smaller manufacturing industry that also have had solid price increases in the latter months, are the wood and wood products industry. In June, prices here increased by 4.1 percent. There are several factors that contributes to this (vg.no). Firstly, demand has gone up. This has been partly explained by many using more of their time renovating houses. On the supply side, there has also been changes. A large invasion of bark beetles in Canada has made the US to a larger degree dependent on import of wood from Europe, making prices increase on the world market.
No changes in electricity prices
The electricity price is a category where the prices normally have large changes from month to month. This was not the case for June as the index for In Norway, production and distribution of electricity are the principal parts of this group., ended up at no change. This dampened the increase in the index on energy goods, although it was still high because of oil and gas. Energy goods ended up at a positive 10,5 percent in June.
