After announcing Wednesday night an increase of R$ 0.19 in the price of gasoline, Petrobras backed down hours later and published a note early Thursday morning stating there would be no adjustment. The state-owned company stated that, in fact, a discount would be granted to distributors in the same amount.
The initial announcement from Petrobras came after the federal government adopted new measures to prevent the pass-through of the rise in oil barrel prices. The Executive announced during the afternoon that it would stop extending the subsidy of R$ 0.44 per liter of gasoline, which was set to expire yesterday, and would instead implement a tax break of R$ 0.63 in PIS/Cofins, federal taxes charged on the fuel.
The difference between the two measures is exactly R$ 0.19, the same value as the adjustment that Petrobras had initially stated it would pass on to distributors. With this, according to the state-owned company, there would be no difference for distributors when purchasing the fuel.
