Oxygen: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Oxygen is made by cooling and separating air, mainly with electricity. Most is piped or made on site for steel mills and chemical plants under long contracts; the rest is sold as liquid or in cylinders. The series is a US oxygen index.
Price index US PPI: oxygen index (BLS base period) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkOxygen and Nitrogen gas
Monthly changes 0.39 weak correlation 12-month changes 0.55 moderate correlation Last 5 years 0.52 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Oxygen ≈ 0.143 × (Nitrogen gas)1.40 R² 0.94 On this fit, a 10% higher nitrogen gas price goes with a 14.2% higher oxygen price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period) and index (BLS base period).Chart: Oxygen and Nitrogen gas prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Oxygen price against Nitrogen gas price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Air separation units produce oxygen and nitrogen together, so their costs are shared. The nitrogen proxy is the broad industrial gases index; monthly moves correlate at 0.39 and yearly moves at 0.55.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsArgon comes from the same air separation units in small amounts. The argon and hydrogen index correlates with oxygen at 0.28 for monthly moves and 0.20 for yearly moves, since hydrogen is part of that index.
weak co-movement month to month · 208 months Show chartsSteel mills blow oxygen into iron to make steel, the largest single use. But most mill oxygen is made on site under contracts, so the link is weak: monthly moves correlate at 0.01 and yearly moves at 0.20.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsElectricity is the main cost of separating air. The proxy is US industrial power; monthly moves correlate at 0.05, yearly moves at 0.41, as power costs pass through on contracts.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsHow to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.