Oil shocks are especially painful because of the commodity's wider uses, not least in fertiliser, and the knock-on effects for manufacturing and transport. And the poor are hit hardest. Recent research published by economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified energy, along with food and agriculture, as among the commodities that have a disproportionate capacity to increase inequality when their prices rise.
Forecasts that oil will hit $100 barrel happen regularly now because of the war in the Middle East and the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world's oil flows by ship. If 2022, after the start of the Ukraine war, is any indication, $100 brings $5 gas.
The scale of what is at stake cannot be overstated. Oil companies can likely absorb a one- to two-week slowdown. A full or near-full closure lasting a month or more would require demand destruction at levels that could push crude well into triple digits and European natural gas prices toward or above the crisis levels seen in 2022.
Prices at the gas pump jumped an average of 11 cents across the US on Tuesday morning, according to AAA. The national price for a gallon of regular gas climbed from $3.00 on Monday to $3.11 on Tuesday, while premium fuel rose from $3.86 to $3.98. That's the largest single-day price rise at the pump since March 2022, AAA told Business Insider.
At least four people were killed in a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram. Zelenskyy added that four people were still missing, and that two people were injured in the attack. In Ukraine's Odesa region, three people were killed, and 25 others were injured in a Russian attack on a building, the head of the regional military administration, Serhiy Lysak, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine's power grid, generating facilities, and heating infrastructure, in efforts to disrupt electricity, heat, and water services - especially in winter. Clearly, Russia is targeting Ukraine's civilian population. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, recently told that Kyiv, with a population of 3.6 million people, has only about half the electricity that it needs as
Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent, among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations. After more than two years of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the daily unbearable churn of mass death and mourning, with homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, the besieged Palestinian territory also faces the fastest and most damaging economic collapse on record. That is according to the United Nations, which says Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent.
Britain faces a deepening energy crisis with household debt to suppliers hitting a record £4.4 billion. As another winter energy price rise takes effect, campaigners warn millions risk falling behind on bills once again. Experts say the only long-term solution lies in upgrading millions of draughty, inefficient homes, as a new generation of "zero-energy-bill" houses shows what's possible.
