Petrobras will not intervene in fuel prices – Prates

The Brazilian state oil company Petrobras will not intervene in fuel prices, which will follow international market trends, according to Senator Jean Paul Prates, appointed by the federal government to chair the company.

Prates affirmed that “nobody ever talked about intervening” in the prices, which according to him, will “in some way” follow the international market.

“Petrobras does not intervene in prices, it complies with what the market and the government create in the context. It is a context. Petrobras reacts to a context. We will create our pricing policy for our clients, for the people who buy from Petrobras,” he commented.

In 2022, with the increase in fuel prices in the international market, the then president Jair Bolsonaro tried to stop the price increase applied by Petrobras, without success, thus changing the president of the state company several times.

Petrobras’ fuel price policy was one of the issues of the election campaign won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Currently, Petrobras is based on the International Parity Price (PPI), which consists of selling gasoline and diesel at the same price that is sold in the rest of the world. The model was criticized by Bolsonaro, by facilitating the increase in prices according to the oscillations of the dollar and the barrel of oil in the international market.

Prates said that the fuels will be priced in the “Brazilian market, which is made up of an imported part and a national part. We have to have a price that reflects the fact that we can produce in Brazil. It is just this,” he commented.

Prates’ words had an impact on the São Paulo Stock Market, which operated in decline and ended up closing with a rise of 1.12%.