Gaps in prices on energy goods

The electricity prices were influenced by October being colder than normal across large swaths of the country. Colder weather is also one of the reasons for the price increase on refined petroleum products. Another cause is a series of floods that has ravenged the American Midwest. The last round of flooding came in late September, and wet fields have caused large amounts of corn to be dried, to avoid spoiled crops. This has given a significant increase in demand, especially for propane. In addition, some fuel types had increasing prices, which could be a result of September’s price increase on crude oil. When it comes to energy raw materials, natural gas continues its general downward trend it has had in the last months. In October, this was accompanied by crude oil in the downturn. These two energy goods combined showed a price drop of 3,1 percent. Services related to these industries also had a negative price development in October, and ended with a downturn of 1,0 percent.  

Price increase in the industry sector

In addition to production of refined petroleum products, other parts of the industry sector saw prices increase in October. Here, one can take the food industry as a contributary to this. Especially on the export market was there an increase for this category. This mainly came as a result of increased prices in the seafood industry, which stands for the majority of Norwegian food exports. It had an uptick after several months of negative price development. Another important export industry is the metal industry. The prices here continued its increase from September, albeit in a smaller fashion. The largest contributary factors here were the zinc and aluminium prices. Some smaller industries pulled in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, there was an increase, as the the total index for the industrial sector rose by 1,6 percent.