The increase in energy prices was the main reason why the producer price index total (PPI) went up by more than 5 per cent in November and thus rebounded after a sharp decline in October. Manufacturing prices rose by 1.8 per cent from October to November.
Energy prices increased by 9.6 per cent.
The increased price index on the energy goods in November, was driven by increases in natural gas, electricity, and refined petroleum products. The increase of over 9 percent superseded a downturn of over 28 percent in October. The energy prices are therefore still lower than in September, and much lower than the index levels in the period from June until August.¹ Of the energy goods, natural gas rose the most in November, but prices are still lower than in September. Prices for In Norway, production and distribution of electricity are the principal parts of this group rose 9 percent from October until November. This increase also followed a fall, of about 32 percent, in October.
– Prices on electricity in Norway are influenced by the prices in Europe, which in turn depends heavily by the prices on natural gas, says Espen Kristiansen, head of section for price statistics at Statistics Norway.
The price on crude oil, however, went in the different direction in November. This downturn came after a rise from September till October.
Price increase for manufacturing for the second month in a row
After two months of price drops in manufacturing goods from July until September, there has been an increase for both October and November. For manufacturing excluding refined petroleum products the increases were relatively moderate, with the index for manufacturing in total rising by 1.8 percent from October to November.
There were price rises in several manufacturing industries in November. Prices in the food industry went up 1.7 percent, while index for electronic and optical products rose by 2.6 percent.
Price decrease for chemical products and basic metals
Prices for chemical as well as for basic metals went down, and thus dampened the price increase for manufacturing in total in November.
Prices on basic metals in PPI have fallen continuously since May, while for the chemical products have fallen continuously since June. Before this, prices for basic metals had been rising almost every month from July 2020 until May 2022, amounting to a total increase of 106%. And from December 2020 until June 2022 the prices for chemical products rose with a total of 89%. Both industries are relatively focused on the export market and are henceforth exposed to international trends.
¹ The sentence was corrected 9. december 2022, at 08.33 a.m.
