Oil heats up wholesale prices

WASHINGTON Prices paid to factories, refineries and otherproducers rose a mild 0.2 percent in March but the largest increasein crude oil costs since the Gulf War signaled faster inflationahead.

The seasonally adjusted increase in the Labor Department'sProducer Price Index for finished goods brought the annual rate ofinflation at the wholesale level to 1.5 percent so far in 1999,compared with a tiny 0.1 percent price decline for all of 1998.

Prices of finished energy goods jumped 1.2 percent in March,with gasoline rising 3.5 percent, heating oil soaring 13.1 percent -the most in five years, residential electricity edging 0.2 percenthigher and natural gas falling …