Petrobras shares rise 3.5% after gasoline increase announcement

Petrobras shares traded on the Brazilian Stock Exchange rose this Thursday (10) after the company announced readjustments in the prices of gasoline and diesel at refineries. The increases take effect on Friday (11).

Pressured by the advance of oil prices with the war between Russia and Ukraine, the company controlled by the federal government will increase gasoline by 18.8% for distributors. For diesel, the increase is even greater, at 24.9%. The value will rise by almost R$ 1 per liter, from R$ 3.61 to R$ 4.51. Cooking gas will have an adjustment of 16.1%.

Preferred shares (which do not give the right to vote, but have preference in receiving dividends) rose 3.50%. Common shares (with voting rights) advanced 2.80%.

Earlier this week, the soaring price of oil on the international market reinforced investors’ fears about the political debate regarding Petrobras’ international price parity.

Last Monday (7), the company’s shares sank more than 7% after President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) criticized the system that equates the value of fuel in Brazil to the fluctuation of the price of raw materials and the dollar.

The fall on the stock exchange led Petrobras to lose R$ 34.7 billion in market value in a single day.

Even considering the cumulative increase of 5.97% since the fall on Monday, the company has not yet fully recovered the losses from the beginning of the week.

Étore Sanchez, chief economist at Ativa Investimentos, believes that the new price to be charged by Petrobras still has a 10% lag for gasoline and that this should not be corrected in the short term.

The oil company’s gains were not enough to prevent the Ibovespa from falling by 0.21%, which led the stock exchange’s benchmark index to close at 113,663 points.

With the fall on Thursday, the domestic stock market lost part of the 2.5% advance obtained the day before on a global wave of optimism generated by apparent advances in dialogues towards the end of the war. On Thursday, however, the first meeting between foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov (Russia) and Dmitro Kuleba (Ukraine) ended without an agreement.

Indicating a certain aversion of investors to riskier investments, the dollar closed with a slight increase of 0.11%, at R$ 5.0170.

In addition to the absence of news of concrete progress in the dialogue between Russia and Ukraine, US government data released this Thursday showed that annual inflation in the United States renewed its 40-year record, rising 7.9%.

With no truce in the war, the next reports could bring even greater advances in the cost of living for the American consumer.

At the center of inflationary pressure is oil, whose price of a barrel of the Brent type dropped 1.85% at the beginning of the night of this Thursday, to US$ 109.08 (R$ 550.93), after having advanced to US$ 118 for the morning. The day before, the commodity fell 13.16%, the biggest drop since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday (9), in addition to hopes for a diplomatic outcome to the war, expectations about an increase in oil supply helped to bring down the price of the commodity on Wednesday, when the United Arab Emirates signaled support for an increase in production.

The country’s ambassador in Washington, Yousuf Al Otaiba, said he was in favor of an increase in production. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said the UAE was supporting the addition.

Hours later, UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said on Twitter that the country believes in “the value that OPEC+ brings to the oil market”, referring to the cartel formed by producing countries from which the UAE United Arabs are part.

Since the advance of Russian troops in Ukrainian territory, on February 24, the price of oil has already risen 12.59%.

The price pressure was amplified by President Joe Biden’s decision to ban imports of raw material produced in Russia, which is one of the largest global exporters.

Last Tuesday (8), when the American embargo was confirmed, the barrel of Brent closed at US$ 127.98, approaching the record US$ 147.50 of July 2008.

It is not just the war that has accelerated the price of oil. Since late last year, OPEC and its allies have refused to heed Western calls for a faster increase in raw material supplies.

The need to increase production was already presented as something urgent due to the growth in demand after the economic reopening made possible by the advance of vaccination against Covid-19. This year alone, the accumulated increase is 40.25%, more than half of this advance (24.51%) had already taken place before the beginning of the war.