'Second wave of price hikes' for Irish households and businesses after invasion of Ukraine

Increases in the price of crude oil will within days feed into the cost of petrol at forecourts

Ukrainian soldiers load the surviving equipment at a destroyed Ukrainian military facility outside Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday. The price of wholesale gas, oil, and coal, as well as world food prices and commodities, surged in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Sergei Grits

Irish households and businesses face a second wave of price hikes after the price of wholesale gas, oil, and coal, as well as world food prices and commodities, surged in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, experts have warned. 

Thursday's increases in the price of crude oil, which at one stage jumped 9% past $100 a barrel for the first time since September 2014, will within days feed into the cost of petrol at forecourts. And the price of European wholesale gas, which influences the cost of generating electricity on the Irish grid, surged by 30%.