Latin America’s Energy Inflation Tripled in Two Months

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Latin America’s energy inflation tripled between March and May, reaching six point four one percent in the year to May, while the region’s overall inflation rate barely moved.

That gap is not a statistical curiosity. It points to how much of the oil shock was absorbed before it reached the shops.

The figures come from the region’s own energy body, whose twenty-sixth monthly report landed this week. They cover twenty countries.

The trigger was far away. Fighting resumed in the Middle East at the end of February, and the Strait of Hormuz was closed to oil and gas cargo ships.

The organisation attributes the acceleration to that geopolitical tension, to supply risks, and to swings in international oil prices. Those pressures reach the region through the cost of importing, refining, transporting and selling fuel.

How energy inflation tripled in two months

The series is short and steep. Energy prices rose two point one two percent in the year to March, four point five two percent in the year to April, and six point four one percent in the year to May.

On our own arithmetic the May figure is three point zero two times the March one. The tripling is arithmetic, not a turn of phrase.

What makes it sharper is where it started. February had produced the lowest energy-inflation reading of the entire period the organisation tracks, close to zero.

In January, eleven of the twenty countries studied had recorded outright falls in energy prices. This is a reversal from genuine disinflation, not an acceleration of something already running.

Why headline inflation hid it

Overall regional inflation closed May at four point one three percent. Energy therefore ran at roughly one and a half times the headline rate, a gap of a little over two percentage points.

The organisation gives one reason directly. A general price index contains a broad basket of goods and services that cushions any single shock, while the energy component absorbs the global movement head on.

It also names what governs the pass-through. The report itself notes that transmission to domestic markets is neither immediate nor uniform, depending on inventories, refining and transport costs, insurance, taxes, subsidies and national stabilisation mechanisms.

Three of those six factors are policy choices rather than market facts. The organisation does not draw the conclusion, but taxes, subsidies and stabilisation mechanisms are all ways for a state to hold a price down.

Its March edition was more explicit. The transfer of the energy shock to headline inflation was incomplete, it wrote, because several countries turned to subsidies, tax reductions, stabilisation funds and partial containment schemes.

The asymmetry inside the region

The same barrel does opposite things depending on where a country sits. In its March edition the organisation set out the split plainly.

Net importers of fuel faced severe fiscal pressure. Net exporters collected extraordinary short-term revenues.

Both groups remain exposed to the volatility of international markets. A windfall and a squeeze are the same event seen from two sides of a border.

The lag cuts the other way too. International crude eased towards the end of June, yet retail prices across the region stayed well above where they sat before the conflict.

That earlier report also recorded monthly rather than annual rates. Monthly energy inflation went from zero point one nine percent in February to one point four two percent in March, the highest in a year.

It put numbers on what drivers felt. Across the region diesel rose about twenty-one percent on average and gasoline about fifteen, with crude touching a hundred and sixteen dollars a barrel in the months that report examined.

Retail prices then spanned a wide band, from seventy cents to two dollars and seven cents a litre of gasoline. On our own arithmetic the dearest pump charged nearly three times the cheapest, which a single regional average conceals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does energy inflation matter more than the headline number?

Because a cushioned consumer price index can hide a growing bill somewhere else. When a state holds pump prices down through subsidies or tax cuts, the cost moves from the shopper to the treasury, and it does not disappear.

Did renewable electricity protect the region?

Not from this. Latin America generates a high share of its electricity from renewable sources, yet it still runs its lorries, buses and aeroplanes on refined crude, and that is where the shock arrived.

Are fuel prices coming back down?

Slowly and unevenly. At the close of June gasoline was still around sixteen percent above its level before the conflict and diesel around thirteen, with gasoline proving the more stubborn of the two.