BBC 英语学习 News Review 创纪录的石油利润

Oil companies make record profits, while prices for customers rise.

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is news of you 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.

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Now, today s story

almost $60 billion 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.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This one comes from The Guardian.

BP accused of unfetteted profiteering as profits triple.

Now, the word we are looking at is profiteering.

And there's a big clue in the 1st half of that word.

Yep. So the 1st 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 that the profiteering is unfetteted.

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?

Um Yeah. So sometimes lenders are accused of profiteering.

So people with very little money might be desperate for alone, 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 BP, laughing all the way to the bank with bumper profits while households face poverty, say campaigners.

So bumper profits, 1st. 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, also, you need to take it somewhere safe to store it, probably a bank.

Yeah? And, I mean, nowadays, you probably wouldn't literally take a huge pile of money while laughing down to the bank.

But it's A-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 yet, then you'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

I really was laughing all the way to the But that didn't actually happen, right?

No, 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, exxon Mobile and Chevron Shatter profit records after global oil price surge.

And we are looking at shatter.

I know what shatter means, beth, you drop a glass on the floor, it shatters.

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

Yeah, 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 where your dream shattered because of injury?

No, I just realized I wasn't good enough.

Oh dear. Well, don't give up.

OK, 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.

Don't forget to try the quiz on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

Thank you for joining us. And goodbye.

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