Cost of living in Brazil: domestic gas prices, gasoline, and ethanol rise and affect the income of Brazilian citizens

According to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, Petrobras readjusted today "the price of cooking gas by about 5%". According to the newspaper, the price increase is valid for all types of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), which includes domestic (for cooking) and industrial gas.

This is the fifth increase in domestic gas in 2019. The last was on November 25, when Petrobras (PETR3; PETR4) readjusted the domestic gas cylinder price by 4%.

According to a survey by the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), in the early days of December, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, the price of cooking gas rose twice the inflation measured by the IPCA.

Already the price of ethanol in the pumps of gas stations in Brazil is the highest in the last six years. To make matters worse, the price of gasoline has also skyrocketed. Thus, fuel readjustments make life harder for Brazilians this holiday season.

One-fifth of Brazilian families use coal to cook food because of pricing policy for household gas of Petrobras

According to a survey published by the IBGE (Pnad Contínua), the impoverishment of the population produced by the prolonged economic crisis combined with rising unemployment and the price of LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) cylinder led one-fifth of Brazilian families to use firewood or charcoal for cooking. Today, 14 million households prepare food in this way, an increase of 27 percent or three million homes between 2016 and 2018. In the Southeast fo Brazil, growth was 60 percent.

Meanwhile, Petrobras maintains a more expensive price for cooking gas than the one practiced internally since 2018 to recover losses that the company has had in recent years. It is a monopoly that harms the Brazilian people for the benefit of foreign and Brazilian investors.

Unfortunately, this pricing policy of Petrobras is driving the poorest classes in Brazil to return to using firewood to make food. A return to the Middle Ages. It is a country where the "modernity" of the "market prices" practiced by Petrobras forces the use of firewood and coal.

In Brazil, the readjustments in the price of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) practiced by Petrobras are quarterly and consider international price averages and the exchange rate in previous quarters. It is this policy that led thousands of Brazilians to cook between soot and smoke.