Petrobras announces the end of import parity and redefines fuel price policy
Petrobras' Executive Board adopted a new commercial strategy for diesel and gasoline prices, decoupling them from the import parity price.
Empresa não se baseará mais nos preços de importação - Foto Reprodução / Internet
Petrobras announced this Tuesday morning (16) the end of import parity and a new price policy for fuels in Brazil, but the Executive Board of the state-owned company approved the new guidelines at a meeting held on Monday (15 ). The measure represents a significant change in the price strategy of the state-owned company, which since 2016 has had a policy of readjustments based on oil prices in the international market, that is, prices followed the variations of the foreign market, without government intervention to reduce prices.
The readjustments will be carried out without a defined periodicity, aiming to avoid pass-through of the volatility of international prices and the exchange rate to Brazilian consumers. In the previous calculation, known as the Import Parity Price (PPI), Petrobras included the value of oil on the global market and logistical costs, such as ship chartering, port fees and transportation through internal pipelines.
Now, Petrobras' focus will be on the customer's alternative cost as a priority and marginal value as market benchmarks. According to the company, the customer's alternative cost considers different supplier options for the same products or substitutes. On the other hand, Petrobras' marginal cost is calculated based on the various options available to the company, such as production, import and export of the product. In the note released by the company, the premises are: competitive prices by sales center, "optimal" participation of Petrobras in the market, optimization of refining assets and sustainable profitability.
"Our model will consider Petrobras' participation and the competitive price in each market and region, the optimization of our refining assets and profitability in a sustainable way", said Petrobras' Director of Logistics, Commercialization and Markets, Claudio Schlosser, according to note released by the company.
With the change, Petrobras will have more freedom to set competitive prices and take advantage of its better production and logistics conditions. This allows it to compete in the Brazilian fuel market with other players, such as distributors and importers. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), since his election campaign, had been proposing to "Brazilize" fuel prices, seeking to reduce the impact of international fluctuations in oil prices at gas stations. The fact is that the change represents a victory for the current government.
