The surge in oil prices caused by the start of the Ukrainian war, a few months before the start of the election campaign, is seen as a test of Petrobras’ resistance to its fuel price policy.
According to calculations by Abicom (Brazilian Association of Fuel Importers), the state-owned company has been practicing prices below international quotations since the end of last year. In the second week of February, the difference exceeded R$ 0.40 per liter for gasoline and reached R$ 0.50 per liter for diesel.
In recent weeks, the appreciation of the real against the dollar gave relief, but with the beginning of the war, the indicators used by the state-owned company to define its prices rose again, pressing for new adjustments.
The last adjustments in gasoline and diesel prices were made on January 12, which leads the market to bet on a change in posture in the election year, with less frequent readjustments and more time below international quotations.
On Thursday (24), after the beginning of Russian attacks on Ukraine, Brent oil reached US$ 105 (about R$ 540) per barrel for the first time since 2014. On the same day, Petrobras’ management said he would watch the market before deciding on any price changes.
The statements on the subject were made at public events to detail the record profit of BRL 106.6 billion recorded by the company in 2021, a result driven by the rise in oil and fuel prices during the year.
In 2021, Petrobras sold its basket of oil products at the highest average price ever recorded on the balance sheet, R$416.40 per barrel, 15.6% higher than that practiced in 2018, the year of the truck drivers’ strike, after discounting inflation. time course.
The impacts of the rise on inflation and the purchasing power of Brazilians led President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to start putting pressure on the company — he even said that he would like to privatize the state-owned company to get rid of criticism.
For analyst Daniel Cobucci, from BB Investimentos, the oil price shock caused by the war tends to be favorable to the company, but up to a certain point in which the pressure against readjustments can interfere in the company’s management.
“It is interesting for Petrobras to see its main product have higher prices, but we understand that above a certain limit this can generate negative consequences as a reaction to the maintenance of the international parity policy”, he wrote, in a report released on Friday (25).
Petrobras’ recent history has examples of interventions in fuel price policy in election years.
In 2002, the then current candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, José Serra (PSDB), publicly complained about the negative effects of increases in cooking gas on his campaign, leading the state-owned company to withhold further increases.
In 2014, former finance minister Guido Mantega, who presided over the company’s board of directors, denied insistent requests from the board to authorize increases, which was only done after Dilma Rousseff (PT) won in the second round.
This week, the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine raised fears in the government’s economic team that the oil boom could intensify the search by President Jair Bolsonaro and Congress for “heroic measures” to try to hold down fuel prices – but which, in practice, , Do not work.
With the early start of the campaign, the topic has already been debated by opposition candidates, who want to blame Bolsonaro for the high prices. Congress, in turn, is debating legal changes to try to lower prices or smooth out variations.
The researcher at Ineep (Institute for Strategic Studies on Oil, Gas and Biofuels) and at the UFRJ Development, Work and Environment Center, Mahatma Santos, says that the current damming of prices may already be an indicator of changes in policy.
“2022 will be a challenging year for this current strategy, given the elections,” he says. “The maintenance of high prices of derivatives has an impact on inflation and on the ability of people’s purchasing power. This will show up in the electoral debate.”
Ineep expects less frequent readjustments in the year, to minimize the impacts on the campaign. But he says he believes that Petrobras will try to maintain the strategy of generating shareholder value and distributing strong dividends, as it did in 2021.
When questioned, Petrobras stated that it maintains “commitment to the practice of competitive prices and in balance with the market, following up and down variations, while avoiding the immediate transfer to internal prices of external volatilities and the exchange rates caused by conjunctural events”.
According to the oil company, this balance is essential to ensure “that the market continues to be supplied on an economic basis and without the risk of shortages”.
On Thursday, at a conference to detail the balance sheet, the company’s Director of Marketing and Logistics, Cláudio Mastella, said that the appreciation of the real against the dollar in recent weeks offset the rise in oil prices, allowing the company to maintain the same prices. since January.
On the current scenario, the company says it needs to observe the evolution of the picture before deciding on readjustments. “In this scenario, we will continue to observe [a evolução das cotações] minute by minute”, summarized the president of Petrobras, Joaquim Silva e Luna.
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
