The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures price developments in manufacturing, extraction of oil and gas, electricity supply and mining, both in terms of sales to the Norwegian market and abroad. In this article, we mainly focus on the manufacturing industries. Key Norwegian manufacturing industries include the food industry, chemical production, petroleum and coal processing and the manufacture of basic metals.
Lower price growth in export-oriented industry than domestic
In the export market, prices were 1.1 percent lower in January 2026 compared to the same month last year. Prices on manufactured goods sold to the Norwegian market increased by a total of 1.9 percent during the same period. This was a slightly lower twelve-month growth than in December, when domestic prices rose by 2.8 percent compared to December the year before.
The manufacturing industry that contributed most to pull down export prices in January was the refined petroleum products industry. Since April last year, there have been double-digit negative twelve-month rates in this industry, and in January, the price decline was 22,5 percent compared to the same month in 2025.
Also, within fabricated metal products as well as chemicals, export prices were lower in January this year than a year ago. Prices for fabricated metal products fell by 5.5 percent, while prices for chemicals went down by 7.3 percent.
From January 2025 to January 2026, domestic prices increased, while export prices fell. Since April last year, this has been the general trend. If refined petroleum products are excluded from the calculations, the picture looks a bit different.
– If we disregard refined petroleum products, there has been a fairly similar price growth for exported manufacturing goods and goods sold domestically since April last year, says Espen Kristiansen, head of section at Statistics Norway.
Increased export prices on seafood and basic metals
An export industry that has experienced rising prices over the past twelve months is the seafood industry. Prices for exported seafood were around 12 percent higher in January than a year ago. Seafood prices have been increasing continuously since August 2025, and from December to January they rose by 2.7 percent.
The export prices for Basic metals (SNN24) covers the melting and refining of metals such as iron, steel, and aluminum. The fabricated metal products (SNN25) covers the production of finished metal products without moving parts. had an increase from January last year to January this year, up 1.9 percent. You have to go back to April last year to find a higher price growth for esported metals than what we saw in January this year. Prices have risen slightly for three consecutive months compared to the same months the year before.
Export prices fluctuate more than domestic prices
It is common for the prices of exported industrial goods to fluctuate more, both up and down, than the prices of goods sold domestically. This is partly because different goods are exported than those sold domestically. Several export goods fluctuate significantly with conditions in global commodity markets. In addition, they are affected by changes in the exchange rate of the Norwegian krone. Although the price growth of exported goods is lower than that of domestically sold goods when we compare January last year with the same month this year, we see that there has been somewhat faster price growth for exported goods over a shorter period. In the last six months, export prices have started to increase again, although overall they are still lower in January than a year ago.
As we can see in figure 2, large fluctuations in the twelve-month growth rate are not unusual in the export market for several of the mentioned industries.
Updated weights for 2026
The PPI is calculated as a weighted mean of price changes. For the PPI to best reflect the structure of the Norwegian industry, the The weights in the PPI are calculated based on the production and export values from the latest finalized national accounts. To ensure the basis of weights being as actual as possible, the production values on more aggregated levels are based on estimates from quarterly national accounts. This results in the basis of the weights will always be referenced by the year before the index period. are updated each year. The new weights take effect from January.
PPI measures the development in prices on quarrying and extraction, including related services, manufacturing, electricity, gas and steam and water supply. A price fall on In PPI, the energy goods are made up by the indices for extraction of coal, crude oil and natural gas, manufacturing of refined coal and petroleum products and electricity, gas and steam. from 2024 to 2025 contributed to a lower share of weight on total PPI for energy goods in 2026 compared to 2025.
Prices on crude oil had a relatively huge price drop from 2024 to 2025, contributing to a decrease in the share of oil. The share of natural gas remained nearly unchanged from 2025 to 2026. The total share of weight for extraction of oil and natural gas ended at 40 per cent of total PPI in 2026, down from 44 per cent in 2025.
The share of total PPI for services related to extraction of oil and natural gas was 5.6 percent in 2026, nearly the same as the year before.
Manufacturing accounted for 48.3 percent of the total weights of PPI in 2026, which is an increase from last year’s weight of 45.8 percent. The industries with the largest weights in 2026 are:
- Food products (13.9 percent)
- Refined petroleum products (4.0 percent)
- Chemicals (3.4 percent)
- Basic metals (3.9 percent)
- Repair, installation of machinery (4.5 percent).
In Norway, production and distribution of electricity are the principal part of this group accounts for 5.2 percent of total PPI in 2026. This is a small increase from 2025 when the weights were 4.8 percent. An average price increase from 2024 to 2025 of 10 percent contributed to a higher weight share for electricity, gas and steam in 2026.
