Stronger dollar pushes up Europeans' bills for oil

European importers are paying the equivalent of up to $11 a barrel more for their oil than they were in January because of the strength of the US dollar since then, the Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reports.

The oil newsletter said the price of oil in dollars, the oil industry's working currency, had declined since January -- the weighted average is now between $33 and $34 a barrel, from just over $35 at the start of the year. But it said import costs in terms of local currencies had soared so that Europeans now pay the per-barrel equivalent of $5 to $11 extra.