Record oil profits: BBC News Review

Oil companies make record profit - while prices for customers rise.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.

Stick with us to the end of the video and you'll learn vocabulary

about making money. Yes, you will.

And don't forget - subscribe to our channel, like this video,

and try the quiz on our website.

Now, today's story.

Almost 60 billion dollars in three months.

That's how much profit

the world's five biggest oil companies made in the last quarter.

It comes as energy bills for consumers continue to rise to record levels.

The high profits are caused by increasing prices for oil and gas

because of the war in Ukraine, experts say.

You've been looking at the headlines,

Beth. What's the vocabulary?

We have 'profiteering', 'laughing all the way to the bank' and 'shatter'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first headline.

This one comes from The Guardian:

Now, the word

we are looking at is 'profiteering',

and there's a big clue

in the first half of that word.

Yep. So, the first half of that word is 'profit'.

That's the money that you make when you sell something.

Yeah. And the word 'profit' itself is fairly neutral.

There's nothing negative or positive about the word 'profit'.

Yeah. That's right.

But 'profiteering' is different.

So, the activity of 'profiteering'

is about unfairly making money,

and this is often because the people buying have no choice.

Yes. So, people who are critical of the oil companies say that consumers,

that's people like me and you, are being treated unfairly.

They don't understand

why these big profits from the oil companies are not passed to consumers

and why the prices keep going up. And in this headline,

it says the profiteering is 'unfettered'. Now,

that means 'without limits'.

So, the writer thinks there's no control over this profit making.

Have you got any other examples of 'profiteering'?

Yep. So, sometimes lenders are accused of profiteering.

So, people with very little money might be desperate for a loan.

But if these people are only offered very high interest rates,

we might say that the lenders are profiteering.

Let's take a look at that one more time.

Let's have our next headline.

This one comes from The Independent:

  So 'bumper profits' first.

'Bumper profits' just means 'really huge profits'.

But we're looking at the expression 'laughing all the way to the bank'.

It's a set expression, and

it's very descriptive.

Yeah, I mean, clearly, if you're laughing,

you're happy, right? Yes, you think so.

And if you have just made a lot of money,

and also you need to take it somewhere safe to store it -

probably a bank.

Yep. And nowadays,

you probably wouldn't literally take a huge pile of money

while laughing down to the bank.

But it's a nice image, isn't it?

It is. But it's not just about making money, is it?

No, it's not. There's also a sense with this expression that

it was very easy to make the money, and because it was so easy -

then perhaps it wasn't fair. As an example, if I sold my car

for much more than it was worth, and the person who bought it

didn't ask any questions - didn't ask me for a discount.

Yep. Then you'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

Yep. And I was laughing all the way to the bank.

Yep. But that didn't happen, right?

No. I would never do such a thing.

Let's take another look at that.

Let's have a look at our next headline, please.

This one comes from the Financial Times:

We are looking at 'shatter'.

I know what 'shatter' means, Beth.

If you drop a glass on the floor,

it shatters. If you throw a brick through a window, the

glass shatters. You're right.

And when the glass breaks, it shatters into lots of tiny little pieces.

So, it's quite dramatic and possibly spectacular.

And that's the sense here.

If you break a record in a big way, we can say you shattered the record.

But it's not just records that you can shatter.

No, you can also have your dreams shattered.

Now, Neil. Have you ever had your dreams shattered?

Well, when I was growing up,

I always wanted to play football and cricket for England,

And were your dreams shattered because of injury?

No. I just realised I wasn't good enough.

Oh dear. Well, don't give up.

Let's look at that again.

We've had 'profiteering' - making a lot of money unfairly.

'Laughing all the way to the bank' - again,

making a lot of money, but easily.

Possibly also unfairly

And 'shatter' - break something dramatically.

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www.bbclearningenglish.com Thank you for joining us,

and goodbye. Bye.