Who gets rich off $3 gas – who doesn’t

The guy running the service station makes just a few cents, while crude oil producers take the biggest chunk.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Motorists may fume when forking over $3 a gallon at the local service station, but as it turns out, your local filling spot makes chump change from a gallon of gas.

So exactly who is getting rich?


Oil traders: Often blamed for pushing up prices, traders don’t necessarily benefit from the high price of crude or gasoline, they profit from how much the price changes. Traders can get rich – as long as they bet correctly on whether prices will rise or fall.

An investment bank makes money when oil prices go from $95 to $100 a barrel if it bet the price will rise – or $100 to $95 if it bet the price will fall – not on the difference between production cost and trading price.

“If you wanna keep your job, you gotta be more right than wrong,” said John Kilduff, an energy analyst at the trading firm MF Global in New York, explaining how traders make their money.

CNN