Petrobras board rejects government request to hold prices

The board of directors of Petrobras rejected this Thursday (16) the government’s request to hold fuel prices. In an extraordinary meeting, the collegiate reinforced that the decision on prices is attribution of the board of the state.

The company is expected to announce a readjustment in the price of diesel in the coming days and the meeting was a last card by the government to try to avoid the increase. The meeting was scheduled by the chairman of the board, Marcio Weber, and had as its theme “price increase”.

Petrobras has not readjusted the price of gasoline for 97 days. The price of diesel was last raised 37 days ago. With oil on the rise and the real losing value against the dollar, the company has been signaling that it will make readjustments soon

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), however, has been pressing the company’s management to hold transfers while putting into practice a package of measures to try to reduce prices, which includes the establishment of a ceiling for ICMS rates, approved by Congress on Wednesday. (15).

The pressure comes up against resistance from the company’s management, which argues that the maintenance of lagged prices creates a risk of diesel supply in the country, since about 25% of the market is supplied by imported products.

The board of directors reinforced that the company’s statute gives the board the authority to define readjustments. The decision is taken by a committee formed by the company’s president, José Mauro Coelho, and by the directors of Finance and Commercialization and Logistics, Rodrigo Araújo and Cláudio Mastella.

According to Abicom (Association of Fuel Importers), the average price of diesel in Brazilian refineries was R$ 1.08 below import parity this Wednesday (15th). The difference in the case of gasoline was R$ 0.67 per liter.

THE Sheet found that the extraordinary meeting of the council was convened at the request of ministers Adolfo Sachsida (Mines and Energy) and Ciro Nogueira (Casa Civil), who have participated in the government’s task force to try to convince the state-owned company.

The assessment is that readjustments at this time overshadow the positive effects of the measures being negotiated in Congress, which could reduce the impacts of escalating inflation on the popularity of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

The ICMS ceiling, for example, can reduce the average price of gasoline by R$ 0.657 per liter, according to a projection by consultant Dietmar Schupp. The value varies between states, ranging from R$ 0.441 per liter, in Amapá, to R$ 1,153, in Rio de Janeiro, which has the most expensive rate in the country.

Next week, Congress debates the so-called PEC for fuels, which authorizes the government to zero federal taxes on gasoline and compensate states that were willing to reduce the ICMS tax on diesel and cooking gas.

With the measures, Bolsonaro (PL) expects a total reduction of R$ 2 per liter in the price of gasoline. The price of diesel would fall by R$1, according to the president’s accounts.

The resistance of Petrobras’ management to change the pricing policy led to the resignation, at the end of May, of the company’s president. Coelho, however, remains in office until his replacement, Caio Paes de Andrade, is approved at a shareholders’ meeting.

At the meeting, not yet scheduled, Bolsonaro will try to renew the entire council, indicating names more aligned with the government. In the list of ten names presented to the state company, there are six occupants of public positions, in a different strategy from the one adopted so far, which indicated executives from the private sector.