The Australian dollar and the price of the world's key marker crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, are seemingly locked in a struggle to see who will get to the 100 figure first.
The key word in that is 'seemingly" because although they are different markets and react to different factors, there is more than a touch of commonality to the pressures behind the rises.
Of course the Aussie dollar is looking as though it's on its way to parity with the US dollar at $US1.00 equals $A1.00.
Oil is bounding towards $US100 a barrel.
Oil is being pushed by Middle East tension and some production problems, plus strong demand: the Aussie dollar is being driven higher by the impact of those factors on the prices of commodities such as gold, copper, and oil: and by expectations of an interest rate rise here next month and a rate cut in the US later this week.
Oil jumped past $US93 a barrel in Asia yesterday, the Aussie dollar bounded over 92 USc and kept going.
Oil finished at $US93.53 in New York, the Aussie dollar, 92 USc.
That's knocking back the Aussie dollar price for oil and limiting the Aussie dollar price of the surging world gold price.
In fact at current prices, the Australian dollar value of a barrel of crude oil (WTI) is around $A100.80.
It's a long way from a year ago when the dollar as around 76.50 USc (late October). That would have pushed the price yesterday out to around $120 a barrel.
Australian petrol prices are around $1.40 a litre, and will edge higher over the next week if prices remain around current levels. If the exchange rate from a year ago were around today, petrol prices would have been north of $1.70 a litre.
That's the anti-inflationary benefit of the higher dollar.
WTI has now risen by around 16% in the past month, thanks to stronger demand, production constraints and the renewed Middle East tension.
A decision by Mexico to shut down 20% of its production yesterday because of a storm and the weaker dollar helped in yesterday's drive upward in the price in Asia.
December Nymex crude jumped by $US1.34 in after hours trading in Asia, to an all-time high of $US93.20 a barrel. It then eased a touch.
Mexico produces about 3.1 million barrels of crude oil a day and about 80% of that is from the Gulf of Mexico where the storm is gathering.
Prices should retreat after the storm passes and the wells are released from later today.
