Brazil needs to open jet fuel market, regulator says

Brazil needs to facilitate the entry of big foreign players in the country's jet fuel market, local civil aviation regulator Anac said in a presentation during a recent workshop.

The watchdog remarked that the Brazilian jet fuel market is highly concentrated, which has led the country's antitrust body (Cade) to ask Anac to create regulations allowing access to airport areas.

At present only four companies supply jet fuel in Brazil: BR distribuidora, which has a 39.84% market share, Raízen (38.58%), Air BP (11.02%) and Gran Petro (10.56%).

In a presentation the latter stated that the current model adopted by the big airports, where few distributors control the infrastructure, results in 20% higher jet fuel costs than in North America and Europe.

According to local fuel distributors union Sindicom, Brazil annually transports 130mn passengers representing a demand of 7 billion liter of fuel per year.

The country's jet fuel is produced by nine local refineries: Reduc, Refap, Regap, Reman, Repar, Rlam, Replan, Revap and RPCC.

A total of 38 agents are authorized to import jet fuel, to be resold via 274 stations.

So far in 2017 Brazil has produced some 5Mm3 of jet fuel, with 63% of sales concentrated in the southeast region.

Jet fuel imports between January and September this year have amounted to 473,000m3, down 56% from the same period in 2016.