Brazil adopts new fuel, gas price rules

Brazil's hydrocarbons regulator ANP issued two separate resolutions that obligate distributors, producers and importers to disclose pricing information for fuel and natural gas.

Producers and importers of refined products will be required to disclose prices at five major delivery points, later to be expanded nationwide to more than 35 points. Prices must be published by the companies on their websites.

The new resolutions also require distributors, producers and importers to include price adjustment information in sales contracts requiring ANP approval.

The fuel-related resolution, which takes effect in 30 days, covers gasoline, diesel and ultra-low sulfur diesel, LPG, kerosene, aviation gas, fuel oil and asphalt.

The resolution concerned with natural gas allows the ANP to publish purchase and sale agreements between distributors of pipeline gas to captive markets. The change, which takes effect in 60 days, is designed to give consumers access to the formation of prices.

"The [resolutions] aim to reduce asymmetry of information and to protect consumer interests in price, quality and supply of products, promoting free competition in both the short and long term," ANP said.

The agency started work on the resolutions in the wake of a May 2018 truck drivers´ strike. At the time, ANP director general Decio Oddone rejected calls for price controls, opting instead for releasing more price information. Oddone calls the changes a "transparency revolution," particularly for gas where almost no pricing data has been available for decades.

The resolutions approved by the agency yesterday are the result of almost a year of back-and-forth consultations with local industry. Industry leaders such as state-controlled Petrobras and Shell-Cosan joint venture Raizen disagreed with the ANP's approach to increasing transparency. The agency diluted initial proposals that would have required companies to disclose price calculations.

Petrobras was not immediately available to comment.

The fuels resolution impacts the climate for downstream investment in Brazil. Petrobras plans to sell around half of its 2.2mn b/d in domestic refining capacity by 2021.

The company has also signaled that it will completely withdraw from natural gas distribution.