美国国家公共电台 NPR--'Planet Money' breaks down the price of a gallon of gasoline

'Planet Money' breaks down the price of a gallon of gasoline

Transcript¹

Planet Money investigates how exactly gas stations determine how much a gallon is going to cost us, and why those numbers are so volatile².

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

While inflation is still running hot in much of the economy, gas prices are falling fast. Sarah Gonzalez, with our PLANET MONEY podcast, recently tried to break down the price of gas cent by cent to figure out why it acts so strangely.

SARAH GONZALEZ, BYLINE³: OK. Gas is going for just under $4 a gallon right now. That's the national average. So let's call it a clean $4. Severin Borenstein at UC Berkeley's Energy Institute says one thing has the biggest impact on gas prices, crude oil, which is the raw ingredient that makes up our gasoline. Right now, a barrel of crude oil is going for about $100.

SEVERIN BORENSTEIN: Well, let's say if a barrel of crude oil is $100, $2.40 of the price of the gasoline is paying for the crude oil.

GONZALEZ: So if you could put raw crude oil into your car, you'd only pay about $2.40 at the pump. But you can't.

BORENSTEIN: Well, yeah.

GONZALEZ: Right. OK. So now we have to refine the crude, turn it into gasoline. And if you've ever wondered what refining is, it is basically boiling oil and collecting the vapor⁴. Doing that, Borenstein says, adds about 65 cents to our gallon of gas right now.

BORENSTEIN: And that's all the costs of the refinery⁵ equipment and labor⁶, the profit they make and so forth⁷.

GONZALEZ: So 65 cents for refining, plus $2.40 for the raw crude oil. We are $3.05 into our $4 gallon. Then we start adding taxes.

BORENSTEIN: Eighteen-point-four cents is the federal gas tax. And that has been the federal gas tax since 1993. It hasn't changed.

GONZALEZ: The federal gas tax goes to things like highway maintenance. So we are at $3.23 and four-tenths of a penny. Now the state taxes.

BORENSTEIN: State taxes vary enormously, but average in the United States, about 30 cents a gallon.

GONZALEZ: So we're at, like, $3.50-ish.

BORENSTEIN: Right. But we still haven't delivered the gasoline to the gas stations. And we still haven't paid to operate the gas stations.

GONZALEZ: This is the final step. And these numbers are harder to pin down, Borenstein says. It depends a lot on where a gas station is, in the middle of a city or the middle of nowhere.

BORENSTEIN: Land costs are different. And labor costs are different. But typically, that's going to add another 20 to 50 cents a gallon.

GONZALEZ: Which brings us to, at most, $4.03 and four-tenths of a cent. So that is our $4 gallon, which is lower than a few months ago, right? And we know why it's lower. Basically, for most of the pandemic, no one was driving. And the cost of crude oil went down to $0, and at one point, negative dollars. Oil and gas companies were like, ooh, at $0, it is not worth it to look for new oil or refine it.

RYAN KELLOGG: Yeah. The industry more or less stopped drilling.

GONZALEZ: Ryan Kellogg is an economist⁸ at the University of Chicago. Then, he says, two things happened. A bunch of people basically decided⁹ the pandemic was over, started driving again. And much of the world stopped taking Russian oil. Demand was up, and supply was down. Refineries¹⁰ couldn't keep up.

KELLOGG: Refineries at their maximum capacity.

GONZALEZ: Prices went through the roof. And there's a saying that the solution to high gas prices is high gas prices because it makes companies look for more oil and refine more. And this happened. When oil and gas prices hit record highs, companies found ways to refine more. And they decided to start drilling again. But Kellogg says, that takes time.

KELLOGG: You lay off a bunch of rig crews in 2020. Now it's 2022. It's not like those people are just sitting around, waiting for you to call them.

GONZALEZ: It's taken a while to get back to the pre-pandemic oil supply, but we're getting there, which is partly why prices have dropped. Also, people stopped driving over high gas prices. And that's the other way prices go down.

Sarah Gonzalez, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF J DILLA'S "OVER THE BREAKS")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 volatile   

adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质

参考例句：

• With the markets being so volatile,investments are at great risk.由于市场那么变化不定，投资冒着很大的风险。
• His character was weak and volatile.他这个人意志薄弱，喜怒无常。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

5 refinery   

n.精炼厂，提炼厂

参考例句：

• They built a sugar refinery.他们建起了一座榨糖厂。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

6 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

7 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

8 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 refineries   

精炼厂( refinery的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The efforts on closedown and suspension of small sugar refineries, small saccharin refineries and small paper mills are also being carried out in steps. 关停小糖厂、小糖精厂、小造纸厂的工作也已逐步展开。
• Hence the sitting of refineries is at a distance from population centres. 所以，炼油厂的厂址总在远离人口集中的地方。