With the price of ethanol and gasoline skyrocketing, refueling with CNG remains advantageous even with a 39% increase from Petrobras, says Copergás

Last Monday (5), Petrobras announced a 39% readjustment in the selling prices of Natural Gas for vehicles for distributors. As of May, CNG, the main option for drivers who travel many kilometers a day and flee the increase in the price of gasoline and ethanol, will also impact Brazilians' pockets, but even with the readjustment, refueling with Natural Gas will continue to be advantageous, says Copergás.

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Unlike the prices of gasoline, diesel and LPG (used in gas cylinders and cooking), vehicle gas is readjusted quarterly. The increase in reais per cubic meter takes effect on May 1st and the price will be maintained until the end of July.

According to the Brazilian oil company, the fuel considered cleaner and found accumulated in porous rocks underground, is also linked to the price of oil. “For the months of May, June and July, the reference is the prices for the months of January, February and March. During this period, oil was up 38%, following the upward trend of global commodities. In addition, domestic commodity prices rose due to the devaluation of the real”, says the company in a note.

Another factor that contributed to the 39% increase was the variation of the IGP-M, used for the annual readjustment of the CNG transport contract, which always takes place in May. The accumulated this year was 31% for the index, also known to impact rent values.

In the statement about the increase, Petrobras also justifies that natural gas had an accumulated reduction of 35% in reais last year.

Increase in the price of ethanol, gasoline and now CNG will further impact app and taxi drivers' pockets

CNG became popular in Brazil when it was used by app drivers and taxi drivers. This is because it has better performance and is cheaper than ethanol and gasoline fuels. According to the BR distributor, the economy is 60%, on average.

A popular car that runs 100 km per day does 8 km per liter of alcohol, 10 km per liter of gasoline and 12 km per cubic meter of CNG. But the costs of installing the cylinders in the trunk are high, between R$3 and R$6, in addition to the disadvantage of taking up space in the trunk.

The option for fuel gained strength at the beginning of this year with the rise of gasoline and ethanol, which add up to 40,76% and 25%, respectively. While the cubic meter of CNG costs R$ 2,984, gasoline costs R$ 5,328 per liter and ethanol, R$ 3,818, in prices for São Paulo measured by the ANP (National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels).

Raízen of the Shell Group wants to build three plants producing ethanol made from sugarcane bagasse and straw

Raízen, the global giant producing ethanol together with Shell, intends to build three more cellulosic ethanol plants — or second generation. The good news was announced by businessman Rubens Ometto, from Cosan, last Monday (15/03) 

The technology for producing cellulosic ethanol emerged from a partnership between Shell and the Canadian company Logen, specialized in biotechnology. In the past harvest (2019/20), the Piracicaba unit produced 226 liters of ethanol for each ton of dry biomass.