The rise in oil prices in recent months has been a concern to oil-importing nations and to retail consumers as the rally has been inflating their oil import bills and spending on motor fuel at the pump, respectively. Now the higher oil prices have started to create concerns over how central banks around the world would tackle the higher fuel costs that boost inflation. Some policymakers could tighten monetary policy faster than planned to protect economies from quicker-growing inflation. Yet, “a kneejerk reaction could sow the seeds of economic slowdown, oil demand destruction and another price crash,” Andy Critchlow, Head of Energy News in EMEA for S&P Global Platts, wrote last week. OPEC—whose production cut pact with a dozen of non-OPEC producers led by Russia has already brought global oil inventories down to their five-year average—can’t afford to see oil demand destruction because it was the stronger-than-expected (and still […]