A delegation from Petrobras met with members of the federal government in the early evening of last Monday (13) at Palácio do Planalto.
The meeting, which according to sources in the CNN was commanded by the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira (PP), with the objective of trying to stop the imminent readjustment in the values of diesel and gasoline, which accumulate weeks of lag in relation to the international market.
Also according to sources heard by the CNN representing the government, in addition to Nogueira, the number two of the Civil House, Jonathas Assunção and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Adolfo Sachsida, were at the table.
For Petrobras were the president, José Mauro Coelho, the chairman of the Board of Directors, Márcio Weber, the director of Commercialization and Logistics at Petrobras, Cláudio Mastella, and a manager of the state company.
Sources heard by CNN also revealed that the government’s appeal would have been for Petrobras to wait for the approval of the ICMS changes by the National Congress and only then increase diesel and gasoline, as a gesture of ‘good faith’ so as not to disturb the processing of the Complementary Law Project n. 18.
Petrobras representatives would not have committed to the government’s request, but they also did not refute the idea and signaled that they would make a responsible decision.
During the meeting, one of the ideas that emerged was to hand over oil exploration areas to Petrobras, through PPSA – the state company that controls the oil ‘map’ – as ‘compensation’ for the delay in the readjustment. The idea, however, was discarded.
At another point in the meeting, Sachsida would have demonstrated the relationship between supply and demand that would justify the government’s thesis that there is no risk of running out of diesel in Brazil in the second half of the year.
The approval of PLP 18 this Wednesday (15th) makes room, therefore, for the readjustment that the market has been waiting for since last Friday (10th). All that is missing is the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), which should happen in the coming days.
Diesel currently has a lag of R$1.08 per liter (18% cheaper for domestic sales than for imports). Gasoline is lagging by 67 cents per liter (14%). The figures are from the Brazilian Association of Fuel Importers (Abicom).
If applied as approved, the project should result in an average discount of 82 cents per liter of diesel and 52 cents in the price of gasoline.
The values indicated on the Petrobras price calculation portal are smaller than the lag measured by Abicom, but Petrobras’ readjustments do not usually cover the entire difference. That is, in practice, the imminent increase should neutralize the discount on the bill.
The internal reading of the Petrobras summit is that PLP 18 is very welcome, because it relieves the consumer and amortizes part of the impact of fluctuations in the foreign market in the value charged for fuels.
wanted by CNN , Petrobras said it would not comment on the matter. The Ministries of Mines and Energy and the Civil House did not respond to questions in the report.
Source: CNN Brasil
