The average cost of filling up a typical family car has exceeded 100 pounds ($125) for the first time in Britain, as Russia’s war in Ukraine drives gasoline prices higher.

Figures from data firm Experian Catalist showed that the average price of a liter of gas at U.K. pumps hit a record 182.3 pence ($2.3) on Wednesday, taking the average cost of filling a 55-liter (14.5-U.S. gallon) family car to 100.27 pounds. The prices are the equivalent of about $8.8 per gallon.

Motoring association AA said the price hikes have been a “huge shock” for drivers and urged the government to intervene.

“Enough is enough. The government must act urgently to reduce the record fuel prices which are crippling the lives of those on lower incomes, rural areas and businesses,” AA President Edmund King said.

“The 100-pound tank is not sustainable with the general cost-of-living crisis, so the underlying issues need to be addressed urgently,” King said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to concern about oil and gas supplies and worsened soaring energy prices, trickling down to customers filling up at the pump. High gasoline prices have hit people across Europe and in the United States, prompting governments to pass measures to try to ease the pain.

The British government in March announced a fuel tax cut of 5 pence per liter to help drivers after record jumps in pump prices.

Many motorists argue the tax cut reduced the cost of filling up a car by only a tiny amount. There are also growing concerns that fuel retailers are not passing on the tax cut to customers.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is facing heavy pressure to do more to help Britons struggling with fuel and food prices and domestic energy bills amid a severe cost-of-living crisis.

Johnson’s spokesman said Wednesday that soaring fuel prices were “hugely concerning,” and the government wants to make sure companies are passing the tax cut on to consumers.

“It is important the public understand what actions each of the fuel retailers are taking, and so we are considering what further options we can take in this area,” he said.

The average price that Americans pay for a gallon of gasoline is closing in on $5, another drain on the wallets of consumers who are paying more for many other essentials too.

Pump prices have been rising steadily for months, shooting past the $4 mark in early March. They track the cost of crude oil, which was rising even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove oil even higher.

AAA said the nationwide average for regular on Thursday was $4.97 a gallon, up a quarter in just the last week and $1.90 more than drivers were paying a year ago.

GasBuddy, a service that helps drivers find deals on gas, said the average surpassed $5 for the first time ever. Fears of short supplies are being compounded by demand, which usually picks up around Memorial Day — the unofficial start of summer and vacation trips in the U.S.

California has the highest average price, at $6.40 a gallon, according to AAA. Several other Western states and Illinois are higher than $5.50.  The lowest average is in Georgia, at $4.41.

While the $5 mark is new, Americans paid more for gasoline back in July 2008, when inflation is considered. The high of $4.11 a gallon then would be equal to about $5.40 a gallon today.

Americans aren’t the only ones paying more to fill up. This week, gasoline prices in the United Kingdom hit a record 182.3 pence ($2.30) per liter, or about $8.80 per gallon.

On both sides of the Atlantic, pressure is growing on governments to do something to help motorists.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD said Wednesday Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Energy and food crises it worsened will severely drag down global economic growth and push up inflation this year,

China’s “zero-COVID” policies, which have further scrambled manufacturing supply chains, also are weighing on a world economy that was just starting to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Paris-based OECD said, becoming the latest institution to slash its growth forecast and underscoring the dimming economic outlook.

The OECD, a club of largely wealthy nations, expects the global economy to expand 3% in 2022, down from the 4.5% that it predicted in December.

Inflation is forecast at nearly 9% for the OECD’s 38 member countries, which include the United States, United Kingdom and many European nations, nearly double the previous estimate.

The World Bank, the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund have made similar downgrades to their economic forecasts recently.

“Russia’s war is indeed imposing a heavy price on the global economy,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said at a press conference in Paris. He urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stop this atrocious, senseless war now.”

The organization released its forecast as it gears up for a two-day annual meeting starting Thursday, attended by government ministers and featuring video remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The OECD warned that the economic turmoil will hit the poor the hardest. The war is disrupting supplies of food staples like wheat and energy, of which Russia and Ukraine are major global suppliers, fanning inflation that eats away at disposable income and living standards, it said.

The war is hurting economic growth in European nations the most because they are more exposed to the war through trade and energy links. But the OECD also raised the alarm about poor countries farther afield facing food shortages.

The European Central Bank ECB will raise interest rates next month for the first time in eleven years and add another hike in September, catching up with other central banks worldwide as they pivot from supporting the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic to squelching soaring inflation.

The surprise move Thursday marks a turning point after years of extremely low interest rates but faces risks from weakening prospects for economic growth. Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent shock waves through the global economy, particularly as energy prices have soared and clobbered Europe, which relies on Russian oil and natural gas.

ECB President Christine Lagarde told reporters “Russia’s unjustified aggression towards Ukraine continues to weigh on the economy in Europe and beyond,”. The war is “disrupting trade, is leading to shortages of materials and is contributing to high energy and commodity prices.”

The bank’s 25-member monetary policy council, which met in Amsterdam, said inflation had become a “major challenge” and that those forces had “broadened and intensified” in the 19 countries that use the euro currency. Consumer prices rose by a record 8.1% in May. The bank’s target is 2%.

The ECB will first end its bond purchases that buoy the economy and then raise rates by a quarter-point in July. It left open the possibility that it would make a more drastic, half-percentage-point increase in September, saying that if the inflation outlook persists or deteriorates, “a larger increment will be appropriate.”

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its key rate by a half-point May 4 and has held out the prospect of more of those larger increases. The Bank of England has approved rate hikes four times since December.

The bar to a half-point hike in September “has been set very low,” said Marc Ostwald, chief economist and global strategist at ADM Investor Services International.

How far the bank will go after that is harder to tell, said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING bank.

“Simply put, the ECB just announced the end of a long era,” Brzeski said. “Whether this will also be the start of a new era of continuously rising interest rates, however, is still far from certain.”

The prospect of rapid increases has sent shudders through stock markets, as higher rates would raise the returns on less risky alternatives to stocks and can make credit more expensive for businesses. Lagarde said, however, that the path of increases would be “gradual but sustained” after September.

The Government of Algeria announce a suspension of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-neighborliness and Cooperation signed with Spain 20 years ago to protest the country’s shift in position on Western Sahara.

The announcement came hours after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reportedly said his government’s policy shift on Western Sahara has “improved Spain’s bilateral relations with Morocco.”

In March, the Spanish government shifted its long-standing position on Western Sahara by endorsing Morocco’s autonomy plan for the territory, paving the way for easing diplomatic tensions between the two kingdoms.

The Algerian Presidential statement says “the new Spanish position violates international legitimacy, and directly contributes to the deterioration of the situation in Western Sahara and the region as a whole.”

Bilateral Relations

The friendship treaty agreed on Oct. 8, 2002, with Spain has framed the development of bilateral relations between Algiers and Madrid, it noted.

Western Sahara is claimed by Morocco, but the Algeria-based Polisario Front movement has been fighting for its independence.

Algeria recalled its ambassador to Spain in March after the position shift of the Spanish government on Western Sahara.

Nigeria’s Commercial Banks have implemented interest rate hikes for loans raising rates by as much as 200 basis points (2%).

The interest rate hike is coming on the heels of the recent increase in the central bank’s monetary policy rate (MPR) which was jacked up from 11.5% to 13%, a one-hundred-and-fifty-point basis point increase.

The MPR is a benchmark rate used by the apex bank to lend money to commercial banks in Nigeria. Banks often add a premium to the MPR when setting interest rates for their borrowers.

The interest rate increases are with immediate effect giving customers no choice but to plan ahead or look for alternatives to fund the interest rate hikes.

According to a Nairametrics survey, while banks are quick to adjust interest rates for borrowing upwards, savings deposit rates remain the same.

Past interest rate hikes from banks have often gone without any form of control leaving it to market forces to determine. The Central Bank often provides guidance on rate bands, with maximum and prime lending rates often the guide.

The latest data from the CBN indicates the prime lending rate was 11.8% in April while the maximum lending rate is 28.79%. It is expected that the rates will increase by at least 2%.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria voted unanimously last month to raise the benchmark interest rate to 13% after two years of expansionary monetary policy.

While the CBN’s hawkish move is targeted at curbing the rising rate of inflation in the country, it is likely to slow down economic activity in the country especially if it slows down loan creation.

The Secretary-General, Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammad Barkindo, has lauded the 2016 multilateral Declaration of Cooperation (DoC) between OPEC and non-OPEC producers.

Barkindo said it was one of the major developments that had affected the global oil industry in the last six years.

He stated this in his keynote address delivered at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Washington DC, United States, where he said: “It has been immensely pleasing over the past six years to witness the evolution of the multilateral DoC between OPEC and non-OPEC producers.

“It was not an easy task bringing everyone together; it took a great deal of diplomacy, and if I might say, buckets of toil and sweat. The efforts, however, were worth it.

“Its collaborative nature, and its comprehensive, adaptable and robust architecture, has allowed us to face a plethora of challenges head-on and navigate the many bumps in then road that have shaken the global economy.

“I am proud to recall the way in which participants in the Declaration helped pull the industry back from the brink of catastrophe following the downturn in 2014-2016.

“It was a monumental effort, but one that helped the industry rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes, and, in turn, had a positive impact on the global economy, and trade worldwide.”

According to him, having the Declaration in place also proved extremely beneficial in 2020, when there was a need to react quickly and forcefully in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Barkindo said the DoC decisions helped the petroleum industry to overcome the challenges witnessed in April 2020 when global oil demand went down by 20 million barrels a day.

“The DoC has over the past six years also been a shelter and a beacon of stability despite any geopolitically-induced turbulence.

“The commitment of the DoC to a balanced and sustainable market was evidenced only last week when participants advanced the planned overall production adjustment for September 2022, into July and August.

“This was quickly welcomed by the U.S Administration,” the OPEC boss said.

He added that the importance of the Declaration had also received backing from other producers, as well as from consumers.