Lula government: natural gas wins working group – 04/17/2023 – Market

The vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, and minister of the MDIC (Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services), announced this Monday (17th), a working group to strengthen the natural gas market.

“It’s for yesterday”, he said about the start of work by the team formed with names suggested by Fiesp, independent gas producers, Petrobras and ministries.

At the meeting with businessmen at the Brazilian Gas Seminar for the Reindustrialization of Brazil, promoted by Fiesp and Firjan, the vice president stated that discussing how to reduce the price of the molecule and transport and strengthen infrastructure is part of Brazil’s competitiveness agenda.

The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, said that the working group will discuss specific cases by region of the country, always focusing on making natural gas viable.

“We are reducing the price of gas as a mixture of international parameters and national demand. Petrobras’ prices will be the best prices it can offer to capture new customers. In the same way as with fuel. We have to be competitive.”

On Monday, Petrobras announced an average reduction of 8.1% in the price of natural gas sold to distributors as of May 1st.

With this update, the price of natural gas sold by Petrobras to distributors will accumulate a reduction of approximately 19% in the year, according to the state-owned company.

Alckmin defended including private producers to reduce the price of the input and be competitive.

“Brazil has the greatest supply of gas. The pre-salt layer is a great achievement. The problem is the lack of infrastructure,” he said.

He defended tax reform and the fiscal framework to strengthen the industry. These two “structural reforms” will reduce bureaucracy and interest rates, he said.