Director of CBIE (Brazilian Center for Infrastructure) and former advisor at ANP (National Petroleum Agency), Adriano Pires criticized, on Tuesday (14), the results of Petrobras’ first quarter disclosed the day before and said he sees the company going back to the same problems of the past.
Pires was appointed by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to the presidency of the state-owned company, but ended up giving up the position due to conflicts of interest with his consulting activity.
He said last year was good for the oil company because, despite the new fuel pricing policy, the company maintained international parity. With the barrel of oil still at a high level, the state-owned company benefited, according to the director of CBIE.
But this year Pires said he is concerned about the increase in the company’s investments, including in refineries, returning to a past policy and moving away from focusing on its main business, which is oil exploration and production.
Director of the Brazilian Center for Infrastructure (CBIE), Adriano José Pires Rodrigues was considered for the presidency of Petrobras during the Bolsonaro government – Luis Macedo/Chamber of Deputies”It won’t work. It will be a horror again,” he said.
“The government looks at this mixed economy model and thinks Petrobras belongs to the current government. President Lula just needs to transfer Petrobras to his Income Tax because he thinks it’s his. Bolsonaro thought the same,” he declared during a panel at the Tag Summit 2024, an event with investors in São Paulo.
Pires said that Brazilian society is mature enough to discuss the privatization of Petrobras. “I don’t see any logic in a country like Brazil being the majority shareholder of an oil company in the midst of an energy transition.
“He argued that this discussion on privatization should take place soon, to take advantage while oil still plays an important role in the global economy. According to him, as this participation decreases, the company’s market value tends to fall.
“The longer you wait to privatize Petrobras, the less it will raise. Because it will be worth less,” he said.Folha Mercado Receive in your email the most important news in the economy; open to non-subscribers.
Pires also criticized the energy planning in the country, which leads to an increase in tariffs even with a larger energy supply than demand.He said that solar and wind energy will not solve the problems of Brazil’s electrical sector, which, according to him, is going through a death spiral, with the bankruptcy of distributors.”
Sun and wind are great, energy that we must take advantage of because they give us a comparative advantage. But they have their technical limitations. They are intermittent. So, they do not provide energy security. What provides energy security is thermal power.
That’s why we need gas thermal power, that’s why, in my opinion, there will be a comeback of nuclear power,” he concludes.
He also said that with much lower solar generation rates, people consume much more energy, and the operator of the national system ends up not coping with a consumption that is outside the interconnected electrical system, hence the risk of power outages with energy peaks.
