Evidências empíricas da importância da indústria brasileira de refino de petróleo

Abstract

Petrobras accounts for 99% of the production of petroleum products in Brazil. It is understood that the present and future configuration of this sector is largely intertwined with the investment decisions of this company and are therefore decisive from the supply of fossil fuels in a country whose predominant mode is the road. The year 2014 marked the beginning of the crisis experienced by Petrobras, which led to successive reviews of the company's investment plans. In this context, there was a reduction of investments of the Brazilian NOC, with emphasis on those directed to the refining segment. More recently, since the Temer government, the strategy has been to carry out disinvestments in this sector. From the statements made so far by President Bolsonaro, there are prospects of privatization of the company's main refineries. Within this context, this dissertation aims to point out the importance of the Brazilian refining sector, based on the input-output analysis method, regarding productive links, based on the calculation of its linkage indexes, employment, and product multiplier. The relative importance of the refining industry within the Brazilian manufacturing industry will also be analyzed regarding its value aggregation capacity, gross fixed capital formation, employed personnel, income generation and contribution to domestic production. The results indicate that the refining sector is responsible for 10% and 18% of value added and gross fixed capital formation, respectively, of the Brazilian manufacturing industry. Also, given its productive linkages, it is the sector, among all sectors (primary, industrial and services), with the highest employment multiplier, production and downstream link index. In this sense, and considering the current crisis, it seeks to understand, on the one hand, the importance of the refining sector for the country and, on the other side, to glimpse the consequences (to the Brazilian economy and society) of an eventual exit of Petrobras scene in that sector. It is argued here that such a strategy may make the country dependent on the importation of petroleum derivatives and very susceptible to exchange rate fluctuations, just after the discovery of large reservoirs in the pre-salt