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The president of Petrobras, General Joaquim Silva e Luna, criticized this Tuesday the government's plan to tax exports of crude oil by Brazil.
According to the company's president, this could be harmful to Petrobras' business and discourage future buyers of shares in the indirect privatization process that is being negotiated in the National Congress.
According to the president, there are other ways of stabilizing the price of petroleum derivatives in the domestic market that do not involve such a severe restriction on the business of Brazil's largest oil company.
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The statement was given by the president during a hearing at the Senate economic affairs committee, with a view to explaining the rise in fuel prices to senators.
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In the same speech, Luna states that “Petrobras is not a monopoly and there are already several competitors in the fuel sector, including Vibra, Ipiranga and Raízen”
What do we know about crude oil export taxation so far?
The crude oil export tax aims to create a fuel price stabilization fund, thus preventing the dollar increase in the price of a barrel of oil in the foreign market from continuing to drive fuel prices up, one of the factors for the rise in inflation recent.
The president was not the only one to pronounce negatively on the tax. The commercialization and logistics director, Cláudio Mastela, classified the idea of creating this fund with the taxation of crude oil exports as: “an easy way out with a terrible effect.”
Petrobras' dissatisfaction with the taxation proposed by the Senate is precisely due to the fact that that the new strategy of mixed capital company seems to involve much more the production and export of crude oil than its processing, a strategy proven by the sale of Petrobras refineries to other groups in the market.
Alternatives to crude oil export taxation
In his speech today, the president of Petrobras even stated more interesting alternatives for the creation of this fund than the taxation of crude oil.
One of the examples cited is the use of Petrobras' dividends as a source of income for the creation and management of this fund, since this year the company's dividends reached a new record.
General Silva e Luna also stated that society is exaggerating Petrobras' role within the price increase process "The increase in fuel prices does not correspond to Petrobras and is being blamed on it".
Other views on rising fuel prices.
Despite General Silva and Luna's speech, there are other authorities and researchers who disagree with his opinion.
Researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies on Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, Carla Ferreira, recently commented to UOL that the greatest share of responsibility for fuel prices lies precisely with Petrobras.
According to her, these ever-increasing values are a reflection of the pricing policy adopted in 2016, this guideline links the price of oil sold nationally to the price of a barrel on the international market, and wants to charge in dollars, which makes the amounts involved in this transaction become even greater with the instability of the real.
