#MacroFriday: The real price of oil for Europeans

After a very busy week, including what was hopefully an interesting webinar for our clients on Wednesday, I offer you a small but interesting thought on the oil price to put the recent rise into perspective for Europeans.

For Europeans, the price of one barrel of oil is now similar to the pre-financial crisis peak and to the prices seen from 2010 to 2015, but it is still well below the 2022 peak. If we adjust the oil price over the past few decades for the value of the euro, a barrel of oil was much more expensive back then. The price would need to rise by another 37% from the current level to be equally expensive. Together with the decline in oil prices since the 2022 peak, last year’s fall in the US dollar against the euro made oil cheaper for Europeans. Of course, this graph only visualises the price of a barrel of Brent oil in euros. It does not capture the increased taxes on fossil fuels for households and companies.