The Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, announced the creation of a program to increase the competitiveness of the country’s natural gas sector. The measure was debated by the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE), at a meeting this Friday (17) with the presence of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
According to Silveira, a working group will discuss how the program will work, which will be called Gas to Employ.
“It aims at a process of national reindustrialization through gas, not only from the pre-salt layer, but from all the oil companies that explore the coast and that, for purely economic reasons, reinject this gas”, he said. “We need to bring this gas to increase our offer, to be more competitive in terms of the price of natural gas, which we know is essential for energy security and food security”, explained the minister.
As an example, Silveira cited the production of urea, a nitrogenous fertilizer used in agriculture. The production base of urea is ammonia, extracted, in turn, from the combination of hydrogen and nitrogen. Hydrogen comes from natural gas.
“We cannot admit that Brazil is an importer of 85% of our urea, we are not competitive in producing ammonia, which is the basis of Brazilian urea. We know how important our vocation is to feed not only Brazilians, but the whole world, and how important this is for our currency and exports”, he highlighted.
According to him, a provisional measure is being prepared to expand the corporate purpose of Pré-Sal Petróleo SA (PPSA), a public company linked to the Ministry of Mines and Energy that manages production sharing contracts and the sale of oil and gas. native of the Union.
“An MP will be processed so that we can do the swap [troca] of diesel oil that already belongs to the Union for natural gas and thus increasing the condition of having more gas in Brazil, reindustrializing and guaranteeing energy security”, he said.
He explained that the Union sells its share of gas, “at the wellhead in the high seas”, for US$ 2 per million BTU (natural gas consumption measurement unit), which is sold to Petrobras, in the market, for US$ 16. “Because we don’t have an instrument to sell the gas and Petrobras has been disdainful of this gas policy for many years”, he argued. “We will address this issue of energy and food security through gas as well, in addition to other sources, especially renewable sources,” he added.
