Why Gas Prices Just Keep Going Up

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Rachel Abrams (0:31)

From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. About a month into the war with Iran, back when gas was at $3.99 a gallon, Daily producer Anna Foley headed to Florida to talk to a gas station owner about how prices at the pump were feeling both for him and his customers.

Cameron Joudi (0:53)

I would love for this to be over next week, and I go back to $2.79 a gallon. That'd be awesome.

I hope beyond hope that it is temporary and it does not last long. But yeah, I do worry about the longevity of high prices.

Rachel Abrams (1:06)

That was back in March. But recently and somewhat unexpectedly, that gas station owner, Cam Joudi, reached out to us again.

Cameron Joudi (1:17)

Hello.

Anna Foley (1:18)

Hey, Cam.

Cameron Joudi (1:20)

Hey, Anna. How are you doing?

Rachel Abrams (1:21)

He had an update.

Anna Foley (1:25)

So a few days ago, you texted me because of this kind of wild thing you were seeing happen at your pumps. So I just want to know what happened. Tell me the story.

Yeah.

Cameron Joudi (1:35)

So I checked the gas prices. I believe it was Wednesday.

I was working until around three o'clock in the afternoon. Just checking the prices and see what was going on, and everything seemed normal.

Anna Foley (1:45)

Where were you checking them?

Cameron Joudi (1:47)

I was checking them on the gas buddy.

The different gas stations, see what everybody was priced at. I was sitting at $3.99 a gallon for regular gas, and the next day, I opened the gas station and I was talking to my beer distributor, and he was like, what's your gas at, Cameron? I said, I'm still at $3.99. He's like, wow, all the other gas stations I passed by on the way in here all went to $4.19 this morning. I was like, there's no way. There's no way. It was $3.99 yesterday. Wow. That's a $0.20 jump in price overnight.

That's pretty crazy. It's pretty shocking. I didn't believe him until I checked the gas stations in and around me. And sure enough, every single one of them was at $4.19 for regular gas. I said, wow, I guess I really need to, as much as I don't want to, I got to go up $0.20 a gallon.

Anna Foley (2:46)

Yeah. Did customers notice and what did they say to you?

Cameron Joudi (2:50)

Oh, yeah.

Anna Foley (2:51)

Oh, yeah.

Cameron Joudi (2:53)

I mean, the one phrase of everybody's mouths were just, what's going on with these gas prices?

When you guys came down here last time, of course, the conflict over in the Middle East area had just started. It was very prominent in the news. Everybody was talking about it and it was kind of expected, I think, back then. Okay, we got a war going on, there's conflict going on. Yeah, we're going to see a big jump in gas prices. But the war and the conflict over there hasn't really been talked much about lately. There's other stuff going on in the news that people are talking about. People kind of forgot. That's kind of the hardest part for me is I just, I don't have an answer. What specifically caused a 20 cent increase in a period of 24 hours? I just wish as just not even as a business owner, as a regular average Joe citizen, I would like to know why.

I think a lot of my customers would also like to know why.

Rachel Abrams (3:57)

So today on the show, we attempt to answer Cam's question. What is driving rising oil prices? I speak with my colleague Vivian Nereim about the expanding Iran war and why its ripple effects are being felt at pumps around the world. It's Thursday, September 17th.

Vivian, welcome back to the show.

Vivian Nereim (4:22)

Thanks for having me.

Rachel Abrams (4:24)

So we here at The Daily have been in touch with this gas station owner in Florida, who I am sure is not the only person who's confused by what he's seeing right now.