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Brazil has the largest oil reserves in the world but due to quality and lack of specialized refineries, we have to pay almost 4 times more for our own product
Yes, Brazil is self-sufficient in oil if we look at the perspective of volume produced per day. But when we talk about processing it and its derivatives, and that's when the "bug catches" for our country and because for the final consumer, it is so expensive at the pump or converted into products of our day to day. Remembering that we will use colloquial terms in this matter to better exemplify the content for those who are laymen in the subject, all data is updated and related only to processing and commercialization, governmental taxes are not included. So let's get down to business:
Production, Quality and Import/Export of Petroleum
- Production – Currently, our nation consumes approximately 1,8 billion barrels of oil every day, an equivalent amount that our units or offshore platforms can also produce daily. But if we manage to produce the same amount we consume, why is importing it so expensive?
- Quality – There are 2 types of oil that determine its quality: Light oil and dense (or heavy) oil. the light it is easy to process and we can extract gasoline and different noble products at low cost. The problem is that only 6% of our current bookings contain the light category. The dense or heavy it is more recommended for asphalt and large machines, but we are able to convert the heavy into gasoline as well, the problem is that it is very expensive. Even though we are able to extract gasoline from heavy oil, why do we have to import it?
- Import / Export – It turns out that it is much cheaper to buy light oil from abroad, mix the national production of heavy oil and then process this mixture, than to process only the heavy oil. What is left of this heavy product is sold at a low price for export. Illustrating as a practical example: if you wanted a chair, would it be cheaper to buy a pre-molded chair or go to the forest, cut the tree, do the processing, measurements, spend on material, labor, etc.?
Why are our refineries inefficient at processing this type of oil?
The problem is that before the 90s, our explored reservoirs were only for light oil and due to this factor, our refineries were also configured in this way. The new reserves discovered after this period are mostly heavy oils. Petrobras despite being able to produce in quantities never seen before, it had no choice but to import light from abroad, since our refineries are inefficient in this regard.
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At the current average price, we export our dense oil at 46 dollars and import/buy at 64 dollars. CALCULUS ( 46 – 64 = – 18), do you understand? Even so, we have a negative balance, the account never closes! To offset these values, production costs are passed on to the final consumer. This is because we are just mentioning the processing costs, to extract oil in the marine hydrographic basin of Brazil, requires a lot of technology and equipment capable of reaching more than 2 km below the ocean floor.
What can be done to lower costs?
In fact, Petrobras has already started working on the COMPERJ (RIO DE JANEIRO PETROCHEMICAL COMPLEX) which will be able to refine both types of oil, she is even hiring for the works this June 2018 for the initial phase of the project, check it out here. Petrobras also announced a short time ago that it is making interesting discoveries of new wells with light oil, which will lower production costs in the not too distant future.
Remembering that these are production factors, but about 50% of the final price of the pump, refer to government tax collection and, as oil is a commodity, it is traded in commercial dollars (US$). In the quotation at the date of this article, the value of our currency is R$ 3,72 for every US$ 1,00, that is, we pay almost 4 times for a product that we produce, but which is governed by the international market.
