WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — Global commodity prices will jump 23% this year, driven by the Middle East war’s disruption of energy supplies and shipping, the World Bank said on Wednesday, warning of higher inflation, deeper food insecurity and slower growth.
Energy prices have surged 32% in 2026 to their highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, metals are up 25% and gold, sought as a safe haven, 40%, the bank said in its twice-yearly Commodity Markets Outlook. Brent crude is expected to average $92 a barrel this year.
“Commodity markets are being hit by several major shocks at once,” said Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s deputy chief economist. “Higher energy costs and trade disruptions are driving up prices across a broad range of commodities, threatening to worsen inflation, food insecurity, and economic growth.”
Biggest supply drop in four decades
Global oil supply is forecast to fall 5.2% in 2026, the biggest drop in four decades outside the 2020 recession, and oil stocks have been run down during the war, leaving the world economy more exposed to new supply shocks, the bank said. Prices would be even higher if oil demand were not expected to fall 2.5% this year, the third-largest decline after the Covid shock and the 1980 oil crisis.
Food commodity prices are set to rise just over 10% this year because of disrupted grain shipments in the Black Sea. The bank said prices overall should ease by 7% next year, but warned that the worst El Niño since 1950 could keep food prices high, and that an escalation in the Middle East or further damage to Russian oil infrastructure could make things worse.
Aid for hard-hit countries
The bank said it had already provided $8.7 billion in low-cost loans and other aid to 25 countries hurt by the war in the Middle East. The report comes two days before G20 foreign ministers meet in Atlanta to discuss the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
In Pakistan, fuel prices are more than 40% above their level before the war began in February, and the government now sets them daily. Petrol and diesel rose again from Thursday, with diesel nearing Rs400 a litre.
