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High oil production contrasts with historical refining limitations and keeps the country dependent on imported fuels even with advances in pre-salt and increased national crude oil supply.
Brazil continues to produce oil on a large scale, but still depends on foreign sources to meet a significant part of fuel consumption, especially diesel and, at certain times, gasoline.
In an interview with CNN Brasil, former Petrobras president Pedro Parente attributed this contradiction to a structural problem in national refining, which has not advanced at the same pace as oil and gas production.
Consolidated data from the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels shows that, in 2024, the country produced an average of 3.358 million barrels of oil per day, while total oil and gas production reached 4.322 million barrels of oil equivalent daily.
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Difference between crude oil and fuels
The difference between producing oil and supplying the domestic market with derivatives is the central point of Parente’s assessment.
In explaining the mismatch, he summarized that consumers do not use crude oil, but rather products obtained from refining.
“We do not consume crude oil; we consume petroleum derivatives,” he stated on the Hot Market program, mentioning gasoline, diesel, and LPG among the items that actually reach the real economy.
Refining capacity limits self-sufficiency
In practice, this bottleneck appears in the numbers of the refining sector.
According to the ANP, the country’s refining capacity was around 2.3 million barrels per day, and national production of derivatives reached 2.2 million barrels daily in 2024, equivalent to 86.4% of installed capacity.
Still, Brazil remained a net importer of significant derivatives, a scenario that the Energy Research Company maintains in its projections, with a focus on diesel over the ten-year horizon.
This mismatch does not only stem from the volume available for refining.
Part of the explanation also lies in the profile of the oil extracted in the country, especially with the advancement of pre-salt.
Parente highlighted that Brazilian production has come to include lighter and higher-quality oil, while much of the refining sector was designed to process heavier loads, predominant in other phases of the national industry.
The combination of limited capacity, historical refinery design, and pre-salt expansion helps to understand why the domestic supply of fuels does not automatically keep pace with the growth of extraction.
Petrobras structure and price impact
When bringing this diagnosis into the debate about prices, Parente argued that the discussion cannot ignore Petrobras’ corporate structure.
Today, the Union continues to command the company through ordinary shares but does not solely account for the total capital.
A governance document from the state-owned company indicates that, as of January 31, 2025, the Union held directly 50.26% of ordinary shares and 29.02% of total social capital, in addition to indirect participation through BNDES and BNDESPar.
In this environment, decisions that reduce the company’s profitability affect private shareholders and expose the company to governance questions.
It was in this context that the former Petrobras president stated that a permanent policy of artificially low prices cannot be sustained without institutional cost.
“If the government wants to implement public policy, wants to incur losses in the company, or wants to set prices that do not lead the company to maximize its results, it should close Petrobras’ capital and then do whatever it wants,” he declared.
Foreign investment and predictability in refining
The statement also relates to an environment of greater private participation in the refining chain.
The Mataripe Refinery, in Bahia, formerly RLAM, was sold by Petrobras in 2021 to Mubadala for $1.65 billion and began operating under Acelen.
The presence of a foreign investor in this segment reinforces the need for regulatory and commercial predictability for new investments in the sector.
Frequent interventions in prices, especially without a transparent compensation mechanism, tend to increase the perception of risk for those investing in refining assets in the country.
Diesel subsidy and proposed alternative
Parente also acknowledged that the pressure on diesel has its own political and social weight, especially due to road transport.
Instead of a broad discount at the pump, which affects very different consumer profiles, he advocated for a targeted subsidy for the groups most exposed to international price increases.
The proposal mentioned in the interview would finance this relief with part of the dividends paid by Petrobras when the external appreciation of oil and fuels increases the company’s results.
Under this logic, the subsidy would cease to be a generalized waiver and would function as a calibrated transfer, directed to those who directly depend on fuel to work.
The goal would be to preserve the economic signal of prices, avoid competitive distortions, and direct public spending to those who depend on fuel to work.
The alternative would also reduce pressure on states to cut ICMS, a move that often impacts revenue in areas such as health, education, and security without structurally resolving the imbalance between oil production, refining capacity, and the need for imports.
The scenario presented by Parente finds support in the broader picture of the sector.
The country produces a lot of oil, consolidated pre-salt as a driver of supply, and increased the international relevance of its exploration industry.
Still, domestic supply remains conditioned on the ability to transform this raw material into derivatives in the proportions and specifications required by the domestic market.
It is in this gap between well, refinery, and pump that self-sufficiency in crude oil ceases to mean full independence in fuels.
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