Breaking down the price of gasoline

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

High gas prices have fueled speculation and investigations — is anyone raising prices and keeping prices high for profit? To find out, we break down the price of gas, piece by piece, to show you how we get to the price we see at the pump and how much everyone profits at each step of the way. | Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:04.3	Well, it has been a great time to be an oil and gas company.
0:11.6	Like they have seriously made more money than they have ever made.
0:16.4	Shell broke its profits record and then broke it again.
0:20.4	They made $11.5 billion in just three months.
0:24.2	ExxonMobil, $17.9 billion, also a record.
0:29.0	Money is just like pouring down on these people.
0:31.6	We are talking windfall profits here.
0:34.8	And the optics are not great, right?
0:37.3	Because gas prices reached record highs.
0:40.2	For months, filling up at the pump has been brutal.
0:43.7	And gas prices are a really important number to pay attention to.
0:48.2	Gas prices are one of the main drivers of inflation.
0:51.5	Like if it costs more to transport food because gas prices are high, then the price of
0:56.4	food goes up too.
0:57.6	And gas prices are increasing, starts to cost more for consumers because our economy
1:00.4	runs on gas.
1:01.9	States, Congress, the president, they are all looking into who is to blame for high gas prices.
1:07.1	Whether anybody at any point in the process has the power to keep them high on purpose.
1:12.1	Like, is it oil companies?
1:14.6	Do they have the power?
1:15.6	Is it refineries?
	...

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