WSJ:Ethanol Inflation May Be Keeping Gas Prices High
[Dow Jones Newswires, 23 November 2021] - President Biden says in a speech today that while wholesale
energy prices have fallen sharply recently, the retail pump price for
gasoline "hasn't budged a penny ... companies are pocketing the
difference as profit." But analysts at The Lundberg Survey, which
analyzes retail gas prices, say other factors may also be at play. Gas
prices "would have shown a drop from lower oil prices [in recent weeks],
but US refiners are paying extremely high prices for ethanol, which they
must by law buy and blend into gasoline, due to the corn product's
critical logistics problems curtailing ready supply. So no price relief
on average yet for consumers because of a non-petroleum blending
component." (dan.molinski@wsj.com
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