Diesel price should fall with extension of distributors’ environmental targets

The government issued this Friday (22) a decree that makes the deadline for the purchase of credits for the decarbonization of the fuel sector more flexible, a measure that can help reduce the price of fuel at gas stations.

For the sector, however, the solution only pushes the problem to 2023, when an even greater tightening in the supply of credits, which are known as Cbios, is expected.

The possibility of extending the targets, announced last Friday (15th), has already dropped the Cbios quotation on the São Paulo stock exchange. After closing June beating the record of R$ 202.65, the certificate was traded this Thursday (21) at an average price of R$ 96.50.

The measure should help the government to reduce the price of diesel, which is less impacted by measures announced in recent weeks, because it already came with zero federal taxes and had, in most states, ICMS rates below the ceiling established by law. approved at the end of June.

It is different from the case of gasoline, which has already had an accumulated drop of 17.8% at pumps since then and will fall even further with the transfers of a 4.9% cut promoted by Petrobras in its refineries on Tuesday (19). The product is also benefited by the fall in the value of Cbios.

“The measure is in line with the current state of emergency in Brazil, resulting from the extraordinary and unpredictable rise in the prices of oil, fuel and its derivatives and the resulting social impacts”, said the MME, in a note on the extension of the deadlines.

Fuel distributors are required to buy Cbios to offset the emission of pollutants in the consumption of products. The objective is to transfer resources from the sale of fossil fuels to the production of renewable energy, reducing its cost and encouraging consumption.

Each Cbio is equivalent to the emission of one ton of carbon into the atmosphere. The goals of each distributor are calculated according to the volume of fossil fuels that each one puts on the market. In 2022, they will have to buy about 36 million bonds.

Imbalance between the supply and demand of bonds, however, tripled the value of the paper in the first half of 2022, in a movement that pressured the price of fuels and led the government to study alternatives.

The decree issued this Friday by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) allows distributors to prove compliance with Cbios purchase targets until September 30, 2023, and no longer at the end of the year.

It also changes the deadlines for the coming years. From now on, proof of targets can be done at the end of the first quarter of the following year.

The easing was supported by fuel distributors, who accuse ethanol and biodiesel producers of speculation, issuing a volume of bonds below demand. These, in turn, say that prices reflect tighter supply due to reduced consumption of biofuels.

The government asked CADE (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) to investigate the negotiations with the bonds, to assess whether there is speculation.

Source: Leaf