marketwatch’s petrocurrency index which was rolled out on march 4 2020 was on track to post a record close monday as a further plunge by russia’s ruble as a result of harsh new sanctions in response to its invasion of ukraine outweighed gains for currencies of other major oil producers as crude prices rose the index measures the us dollar against a basket of currencies weighted according to their share of global oil output as compiled by the us energy information administration with russia holding the biggest weight it is worth noting that some familiar middle eastern names including saudi arabia and others have been excluded because monetary authorities in those countries keep their currencies closely pegged to the dollar the index mwpc was last up 51 at 24720 and on track for a record close if it finishes above 24391 which hit on march 23 2020 the ruble usdrub hit an alltime low of 11925 per dollar on monday according to factset in volatile sporadic trade it was last down 13 to 9667 as russia’s central bank more than doubled its official interest rate to 20 on monday following further sanctions by western powers meanwhile global benchmark april brent crude brn00 was up 34 to 9736 a barrel after topping 101 at its session high and west texas intermediate crude for april delivery cl1 on the new york mercantile exchange was up 39 at 9517 a barrel away from the ruble most other components of the index were higher monday with the us dollar losing ground versus its canadian counterpart usdcad  the brazilian real usdbrl  the norwegian krone usdnok  and the chilean peso usdclp  the wall street journal reported that the us and other major oilconsuming countries were weighing the release of 70 million barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles in response to surging crude prices the rise of marketwatch’s petrocurrency index underlines the pain in emerging market and petroleumdependent economies as the eastern european conflict unfolds