untitled design

Dossier against Petrobras’ international parity delivered to Congress

Faced with several readjustments in the value of fuels, the Petrobrás Social Observatory (OSP) delivers to the National Congress, this Wednesday (1), a dossier with a series of technical information and economic impacts on the adoption of the Import Parity Price (PPI), which started in 2016.

Prepared by economist Eric Gil Dantas, from the OSP and the Brazilian Institute of Political and Social Studies (Ibeps), the dossier points out that it is possible to sell fuel in the country at prices more accessible to Brazilians. The economist emphasizes that the PPI policy needs to be discontinued.

“The current fuel pricing policy is a real exploitation of the population and stagnation of the economy. Even though Petrobras produces around 80% of the fuel consumed in the country in Brazilian territory, we pay as if this input were imported”, emphasizes Dantas.

According to the OSP, this policy mainly benefits the company’s shareholders. According to the observatory, the dividends distributed were approximately 29% of the company’s total profit between 2018 and 2019. In 2021, the amount should be around 66%.

The Petrobras Engineers Association (AEPET) also claims not to agree with the company’s practice, which seeks to link the cost of the product produced in the country to the international price.

For the organization’s president, Ricardo Maranhão, the parity exercised in Brazil leaves the value of oil susceptible to exchange variations.

“Petrobras follows the price practiced outside the country, where all operations are traded in dollars. As a result, Brazil suffers from exchange rate fluctuations,” he stated.

“The price for Brazilians is volatile due to several reasons, whether social or political, among others. Parity would be interesting for countries that do not produce the input. This doesn’t make sense here in Brazil”, he added.

Former director-general of the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), Magda Chambriard, said to CNN that the “big problem” of Petrobras is not to follow the trend of the international market, but to constantly pass on the value to the population.

“The country did not understand that it is one thing to follow the price trend, another is for you to pass on this value all the time. Sometimes it increases, another decreases. Follow the trend of the international market, I agree. But we have to determine a deadline to readjust, every six months or a year”, he evaluated.

“Another interesting point is that we only readjust upwards, almost never readjust downwards”, observed the former director of the ANP.

Economist at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) Joelson Sampaio also points out that the constant readjustment in the price of input to the population becomes “unsustainable” with each passing day.

“The current situation shows that Petrobras needs to rethink the mechanisms for transferring it to the consumer, so that transfers to the final consumer will slow down. Regardless of the parity, we need to have less impact on the population with these price variations”, he stated.

In a statement, Petrobras said this Tuesday (30) that it will not comment on the matter. However, the company has defended on numerous occasions the maintenance of the pricing policy practiced in Brazil.

During the last conference for shareholders of the state-owned company, the executive director of Marketing and Logistics at the company, Cláudio Mastella, stated that Petrobras’ prices need to be comparable with the international market.

“It’s no use imagining that Brazil is isolated from the world. The parity makes Brazil’s prices comparable with international ones”, he pointed out.

Reference: CNN Brasil

You may also like

Get the latest

Stay Informed: Get the Latest Updates and Insights

 

Most popular