Minister says PPI was “a crime against the Brazilian people”

The Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, said this Tuesday (16) that the import parity price policy (PPI), by which Petrobras readjusted the value of fuels in its refineries since 2016, was “an abstraction , a lie and a crime against the Brazilian people”. The company announced the replacement of the price composition model for oil derivatives with a system that takes into account, in addition to the international reference, local production costs and supply alternatives.

Under the PPI policy, the company aligned the value of derivatives leaving its refineries with the international price of oil and the costs of logistics for imports. The objective of the strategy was to keep the market attractive for private refineries and importers, since Petrobras’ refining park is not able to supply all the fuel that Brazilians consume, especially after an agreement for the sale of most of its refineries .

In addition to deconcentrating the fuel market, the PPI also sought to prevent the government from using Petrobras to control fuel prices, as occurred during much of the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government – ​​a practice that generated billionaire losses and turned Petrobras into the most indebted oil company in the world. Along with the sale of assets, the PPI contributed to the restructuring of the state-owned company’s accounts from 2016 onwards, and more recently was one of those responsible for the record amounts of profits and dividends distributed to shareholders.

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), however, defends not only interrupting the sale of refining units, but has already shown signs that it intends to expand it.

“I want to make a hard statement about the PPI here: it was an abstraction, it was a lie and it was a crime against the Brazilian people. Because it imposed a handcuff, a gag on a policy of internal competitiveness of fuel prices in Brazil, often causing fluctuations to be much higher than what would be possible to contribute to national growth”, said the minister, in a press conference at the end of the morning.

He pointed out that the change is in line with the vision of President Lula’s government, according to which companies must also have a social commitment. “The government led by President Lula has publicly defended that we must have a national policy of internal competitiveness, that companies are seen as inducing national growth, that they have their governance role, but that they also have their vision, social, which is provided for in the Constitution and in the State Law.”

The company’s president, Jean Paul Prates, said that the new methodology incorporates competitive advantages that the oil company has to the benefit of the consumer. “This model maximizes the incorporation of competitive advantages – therefore, we are going to use the advantages that Petrobras has in our favor and in favor of the country –, without moving absolutely away from the international price reference”, he said.

“It is good to emphasize that when I say ‘reference’ it is not import parity”, he explained. “Abrasileirar prices means taking our advantages into account, but without taking Brazil out of the international context, of course.”

In addition to the change in the pricing policy, Petrobras announced a reduction in the prices of gasoline (-12.6%), diesel oil (-12.8%) and cooking gas (-21.3%).

Prates also denied that there is government intervention in the management of the company, which is publicly traded. “There is absolutely no intervention. President Lula, when he ran the campaign, he said what I’m saying here. It doesn’t make sense for a country to fight for self-sufficiency, it doesn’t make sense for Getúlio Vargas and all the others to fight to have a refining park and, later, we practice the imported price, as if we imported everything”, he declared.

“There is no intervention in the sense of saying like this: ‘put the price like this’. No, Petrobras’ competitive instruments, profitability instruments, the company’s financial guarantee are fully guaranteed”, he said.