The Lula government's agenda at Petrobras is moving forward.
With surprising ease, a new taboo began to crumble: Petrobras' pricing policy.
Not all major changes are recognized as such at the time they occur. In certain situations, however, they are deliberately or tacitly downplayed.
This is the case with the announcements made by the Ministries of Finance, Mines and Energy, and Petrobras this week. Just as had happened in December with the dismantling of the spending cap, now, with surprising ease, a new taboo has begun to crumble.
Petrobras' pricing policy for fuels has an acronym and a proper name: PPI, or Import Price Parity.
The Finance Minister, Fernando Haddad, and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, announced that, unlike what has been in effect since Michel Temer's administration, the government will once again direct a significant portion of Petrobras' profits towards investments, mainly in the area of energy transition, but also to ensure that the company fulfills its social function.
To be clear: fulfilling its social function includes, in some way, aligning the prices charged to distributors with the actual, and much lower, production costs in Brazil, thereby reducing prices for consumers and curbing the spread of inflation throughout the economy.
The change follows the statement made by the President of the Republic on Thursday at the launch of the new Bolsa Família program: "We cannot accept the idea presented in today's news. Petrobras distributed more than R$ 215 billion in dividends [in 2022], when it should have invested half of that in the economic growth of this country, in Brazilian industry, in the shipbuilding industry, in the oil and gas industry," he said.
On the same day, in his first interview, it fell to the new president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, to deliver the final blow: "There is no silver bullet. The PPI itself is an abstraction, it seems to have become a dogma... Petrobras will practice the market price in which it is operating... it makes no sense for me to practice my competitor's price."
These demonstrations occurred in the context of the announcement of the return of federal taxes on fuels, at levels sufficient to cover the 28,5 billion reais deficit left as a legacy by the administration of Paulo Guedes and Jair Bolsonaro. This so-called re-taxation was another step surrounded by superstition. It was accompanied by a temporary tax on crude oil exports, in line with best practices of exporters such as Norway and even the United States.
This allows budgetary resources to be returned to social programs, while simultaneously restoring the predictable budgetary outlook so necessary for a healthy business environment.
It will be up to Parliament to examine the provisional measures regulating these issues, but what stands out is their consistency with the ideology defended by Lula, amidst the clamor and incitement to personal disputes emanating from the "market" and its media.

