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Under the management of Jean Paul Prates in the presidency of the state-owned company, Petrobras Biocombustível (PBio) will once again be one of the strategic pillars of the oil company's decarbonization.
According to sources close to the Federal Government, Petrobras will cancel the privatization of Petrobras Biocombustível (PBio). Owner of three plants located in the Southeast and Northeast, the company would again be one of the pillars of the strategy of decarbonisation from the state. With the future management of Jean-Paul Prates as president, the renewable fuel producer will become another subsidiary of the oil company.
The future of Petrobras Biocombustível (PBio) and the return of investments
The idea is to remove PBio from the divestment program and strengthen its production, reports O Estadão. However, the company does not intend to give up on the development of biofuels.
This being the case of Diesel R (renewable) and bioQAV, which dominate the plans of the current administration. Prates waits to assume the presidency of Petrobras.
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According to a source close to Prates, all Petrobras asset sales processes will be paralyzed for reassessment.
In the balance sheet are the refineries and PBio. Experts are not opposed to canceling the sale, but point out that the initiative needs to be aligned with a national policy to favor biofuels.
Rodrigo Leão, technical coordinator of the Institute for Strategic Studies on Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (Ineep), was part of the transition group. For him, it is essential that the government rescue the gradual increase in the percentages of biodiesel in the diesel mixture. The project would provide predictability to the market and return the tax differential to biofuels, he assesses.
The Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government maintained the percentage of biodiesel in diesel at 10%, canceled the directive to raise it to 15%, and reduced taxes on fossil fuels.
According to Adriano Pires, from the consulting firm Centro Brasileiro de Infraestrutura (CBIE), PBio's sale proposal was coherent at the height of the Petrobras crisis, but with its reversal and possible increase in investments, it should not be seen with adversity, as the state is healthy from an economic-financial point of view, he analyzes.
“But the economic rate of return must prevail and not the political one, which marked the beginning of PBio”, advises Pires.
Rosângela Buzanelli, employee representative on Petrobras' board of directors, said on Thursday (18th) that with the arrival of the new presidency, the strategic divestment plans will be reassessed. The process directly involves the company's biofuels.
“Biodiesel will enter (in this review), either as pure biodiesel or as green diesel. We are going to reopen these plants for now, if it's up to me”, announced Buzanelli during an interview with the Debate Petroleiro program, published on the YouTube platform.
The return on investment is valid, but with “parsimony”
Adriano Pires, from the CBIE, explains that the return of Petrobras' investment in biofuels is valid, but with the condition that it be done with “parsimony”.
“Petrobras' 'core business' (main business) is and should continue to be exploration and production (of oil and gas), in which there will still be a lot of demand (for investments) from the pre-salt layer and entry into the entire Equatorial Margin” .
Pires also emphasizes that there is a need to pursue economic profitability, which was neglected at the origin of the subsidiary. According to him, the plants were very expensive and political interests would have weighed in the choice of their location, which in no way can happen again.
