Rio de Janeiro – Natural gas consumption in the Brazilian market went up 3.2% in February of this year in comparison to January. Thus, the product’s demand increased 8.8% in the first two months of 2015 if compared to the last year’s first two months.
The data is part of a survey released this Tuesday (31st) by the Brazilian Association of Piped Gas Distribution Companies (Abegás, in the Portuguese acronym). According to Abegás, the rise was driven by the growth of automotive consumption that, if compared to January, increased 3.4% in February.
The data indicates that natural gas closed the second month of the year with an average consumption of 80.6 million of cubic meters per day, with an expansion, in length, of 12.4% in the distribution network. The number of consumers went up 8.4%. Today, they are more than 2.6 million around the country, serviced by more than 28,400 kilometers of distribution network.
According to Abegás’s president, Augusto Salomon, the increased demand for compressed natural gas (CNG) occurred due to the price readjustment of gas and ethanol, since, in February, CNG came to be priced at 38% less that gas and 16% than ethanol.
Salomon believes the CNG consumption will double. “Besides being more economic, the cost of the driven kilometer is 61% less than gas and 59% less than ethanol. It’s a fuel more environmentally friendly. It’s 20% less polluting that gas and 15% less than ethanol”, he said.
According to him, the residential segment also contributed for the increase in use of natural gas. After the seasonality period of January, it went up again in 12.5% in February, if compared to January 2015, and 10.4% in comparison to the same month of the previous year.
Registering a recovery in the first two months of the year, the commercial and industrial segments grew 6.5% and 2.4%, respectively. The thermoelectric dispatch, which is been driving the consumption increase since last year, remains high. In a comparison with the previous month, consumption at the thermoelectric plants went up 3.3%. Comparing the first two months of 2015 with the same period last year, the increase was of 26.8%.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani