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CPI numbers show energy costs continue to rise in Virginia

Pipelines are pictured in Obergailbach, eastern France. France has for the first time started conveying natural gas to Germany. Europe is dealing with natural gas disruptions, which has implications there and beyond.
Jean-Francois Badias
/
AP
Pipelines are pictured in Obergailbach, eastern France. France has for the first time started conveying natural gas to Germany. Europe is dealing with natural gas disruptions, which has implications there and beyond.

Fuel and utilities are leading the items that are more expensive now than a year ago in Virginia.

The rising cost of natural gas leads the list of items on the consumer price index. Oleg Korenok is chairman of the Economics Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, and he says the price we pay for natural gas here in Virginia is tied to the world market.

"Europe experiences huge problems with natural gas because Russia cut off Europe from natural gas," Korenok explains. "And so the prices of natural gas in Europe they went up ten times. Not 10%, 10 times."

Michael Farren at George Mason University's Mercatus Center says one item that's actually not rising is the cost of gasoline.

"Much of that price pressure was due to a lack of refining supply," Farren says. "As well as surging demand coming out of our recovery from COVID and a deliberate withholding of supply on the part of OPEC so that they could keep prices up just as the world economies were trying to recover."

He says the new numbers are not as hopeful as some had anticipated – an indication that inflation is likely to continue for rents and health care.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.