“An oil rise is a major source of inflationary risk at a time of already-hot global inflation,” said strategists including Chief Investment Officer Vincent Mortier at Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager. “The risk of stagflation globally is now higher,” they wrote in a note.

While oil has been on a long ascent on the back of a booming economy following the pandemic-induced slump, the invasion of Ukraine prompted a wave of Western sanctions against one of the world’s most important commodity producers, pushing prices even higher. Firms already struggling to maintain margins in the face of surging costs saw everything from natural gas to food and aluminum soaring.