War could push Swedish fuel and electricity prices higher

Swedish consumers should expect higher petrol and electricity prices this winter because of the war between the United States and Iran, experts told SVT. The increases could also put renewed upward pressure on inflation, commodity analyst Christian Kopfer said.

European natural gas futures have reached their highest level in three years, Bloomberg reported. Oil futures are also approaching 100 dollars per barrel, while diesel and petrol prices in Europe are well above 350 dollars per barrel.

“We should expect fuel prices to continue rising unless the situation improves. We should also expect electricity prices to be significantly higher this winter than they were last winter,” said Kopfer, a commodity analyst at Arctic Capital.

However, prices are not expected to reach the levels seen during the 2022 energy crisis, when electricity prices at times rose to around 10 Swedish kronor per kilowatt-hour.

“That is a nightmare scenario, and we will be far from it,” Kopfer said. He added that it was difficult to predict the exact level, but prices would be considerably higher than they are today.

Higher electricity and fuel prices could push inflation up again because both are included in the overall basket used to measure price increases.