Methodology
How the index is built and when it updates.
- Prices and producer price indexes come from FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), which republishes BLS and EIA data; fuel prices are monthly averages of daily prices.
- Metro inflation comes from the BLS Consumer Price Index for 21 metro areas and four regional size classes; each metro uses its own index or its region’s.
- Industrial electricity and citygate natural gas prices by state come from EIA.
- Metro energy use is estimated: 2024 manufacturing employment by industry and county (BLS QCEW) times electricity and gas used per worker in each industry (EIA Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey 2022), summed to metro areas. Confidence is high when less than 35% of the county data is imputed, medium up to 65%, low above.
- Correlations compare 12-month changes from 2016, with the driver leading by zero to nine months.
- News items are written by Discovery Energy from public sources; an item with a single trade source waits for confirmation before it appears.
Coming up
- BLS Producer Price Index, October 2026
- OPEC+ monthly meeting (seven producers)
- BLS Consumer Price Index, November 2026
- BLS Producer Price Index, November 2026
Find out what your bills should have cost.
Send one recent bill per site, or a list of accounts. We tell you where we expect findings before you sign anything. No upfront audit fee.