At a meeting held this Wednesday (27), Petrobras’ Board of Directors decided to keep decisions on fuel pricing policy under the responsibility of the executive board. There was a possibility of change in the process, which could be defined by the board of directors itself.
According communiqué disclosed in the early afternoon, the execution of price policies remains under the responsibility of the group formed by the president of the state-owned company and the directors of Finance and Logistics and Commercialization, who must preserve and prioritize the company’s economic result, “seeking to maximize its generation of value”.
The attribution is contained in a document called the Pricing Guideline in the Internal Market, approved at the meeting, and which incorporates an additional layer of policy oversight by the Board of Directors and the Fiscal Council, based on quarterly reports from the executive board. According to the statement, the practice is already taking place, but it is now formalized in the guideline.
“Procedures related to the execution of the price policy, such as the frequency of product price adjustments, the percentages and values of such adjustments, the convenience and opportunity in relation to the decision of price adjustments remain under the competence of the Executive Board” , says the note.
“It is worth noting that the aforementioned approval does not imply a change in the current pricing policies in the domestic market, in line with international prices, nor in the Company’s Bylaws.”
The import parity price (PPI) policy, practiced by Petrobras since 2016, means that the value of oil products leaving its refineries reflects the international price of oil, in addition to the logistics costs that would exist if the product were imported.
The objective of the strategy is to keep the market attractive so that private refineries and importers can supply the country’s demand, since, alone, the state-owned company is not able to supply all the fuel that Brazilians consume.
The PPI has already been criticized by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who is fighting to prevent fuel prices from continuing to rise as presidential elections approach. In this endeavor, he has already changed the president of Petrobras three times, in addition to replacing the minister of Mines and Energy.
On Monday (25), during a lunch with businesswomen and executives in São Paulo, the Chief Executive said that he could make new changes at Petrobras.
The decision to change the pricing policy, however, It’s not just up to the government. Although controlled by the Federal Government, Petrobras is a mixed capital company and, therefore, any change in its strategy must go through the Board of Directors.
