* Brazil’s President
Jair Bolsonaro has sanctioned a law which opens up the national gas sector to private participation. The ‘new gas law’, which was approved by congress last month and sanctioned by Bolsonaro without any vetoes, outlines a new regulatory framework for Brazil’s gas market, over which state-owned oil company Petrobras effectively has a monopoly at the moment, with the aim of increasing competition and bringing down prices for consumers. According to the national association of large industrial energy consumers (Abrace), the opening up of Brazil’s gas market to private players could bring down the cost of gas for the transport and industrial sectors by 40% by 2028, increase annual investment flows by R$63bn (US$11.3bn), and generate 4.3m jobs. Earlier this week, Petrobras announced a 39% increase in the price of natural gas for distributors from 1 May, a move Bolsonaro described as
“inadmissible”.
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