The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, said this Thursday (2nd), that the company will not be tied to the diesel and gasoline price policy based on the Price and Import Parity, known as PPI. Prates gave his first press conference, in Rio de Janeiro, and said he intends for Petrobras to practice the market price at which it is operating. For Prates, the PPI “is an abstraction”, it does not constitute international parity and when Petrobras departs from this policy it does not mean that it is departing from the international benchmark. “PPI is import parity”, he pointed out. According to him, the company intends to capture more market and be the best option for its customers, but PPI is no longer the only parameter. “Petrobras is going to charge a competitive price for the national market, for its market, as it sees fit, to guarantee its market share in every place it is present”. He considered that the PPI is perhaps not the best price, most of the time, because it refers to the price of the competitor, that is, the importer. “My position is to be more competitive wherever I can be”. The company will defend itself, he assured. “As long as there is market share for Petrobras to capture, it will capture it, within the rules, within natural competitiveness”. He explained that there is not a single reference price for all of Brazil. Petrobras could use the PPI as a reference, depending on convenience, in order to capture the market. “The Brazilian market is different”. Therefore, he assured that the company will make the “price policy for its products, for its customers”. Further on, he commented that letting a competitor in and practicing abstract pricing just to favor the competitor, as happened in the recent past, is “inadmissible”. Government x PPI The president of the state-owned company underlined that the opinion on the policy of import prices is shared by the government. “The one who was interventionist was the previous government, which ordered Petrobras to practice this PPI to help the importer, even without the need for him to import all that. I will compete for the last cubic meter of product, at any stop in the country, that I can import, because the importer is my competitor. If it’s the market, let’s play the market’s game”. It makes no sense, for Prates, to force Petrobras to practice the competitor’s price. Prates referred to the creation of a working group within the government to study and provide more transparency to the country’s pricing policy. This measure has already been announced by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad. However, he assured that the pricing policy outlined will not only target Petrobras. “It is a pricing policy for Brazil”. And he guaranteed that “Petrobras is there”. He stated that as each product has its specific nature, the pricing policy to be practiced has to be per product and per segment. Future Regarding the future, Prates highlighted that Brazil has great energy potential, with each region presenting its vocation, such as the pre-salt in the Southeast, the equatorial margin in the North and Northeast, among other areas. Towards decarbonization, the company will emphasize renewable energies, especially offshore wind energy (at sea). Regarding the decision of the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to reactivate and strengthen the naval sector, Prates informed that Petrobras may place an order in the country, depending on the structure of the shipyards, and provided that it does not represent disadvantages for the company.
Agência Brasil
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