São Paulo – The reduction of Brazilian imports from Arab countries should be turned around next year, with the prospect of an increase in oil prices. The commodity is the main Arab product purchased by Brazil, and should end the year at an average price of US$ 60 per barrel, according to the director of the Brazilian Infrastructure Centre (CBIE), Adriano Pires. Next year, however, if the forecasted resumption of economic growth worldwide proves true, the barrel should sell for US$ 70 to US$ 80.
The figures will influence the balance of trade between Brazil and the League of Arab States. In the first nine months this year, there was a 53.7% drop in Brazilian imports from Arab countries. The main reason was the reduction in purchases of oil and oil products, which fell from US$ 6.7 billion, from January to September last year, to US$ 3.3 billion, during the same period this year. The rate of reduction was 50%. Oil accounted for 86.6% of total Brazilian imports from the Arab world from January to September.
The leading causes for that reduction, according to Pires, are the economic crisis, which brought down the demand for oil in Brazil, and the fact that the country is producing more oil. The reduction in Brazilian oil imports was widespread, according to him, and not limited to the product coming from the Arab world alone. Proof of that is the fact that in the first half this year, Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras recorded a trade surplus of US$ 1.45 billion. In other words, the company exported much more oil than it imported, and the trend should persist until the end of the year.
According to Pires, in the short and medium terms, Brazilian oil imports are going to depend on how the oil price behaves, and on economic growth. In the long run, however, the trend is for imports to drop to zero, as a result of exploration in the pre-salt layer. Presently, Brazil imports oil of the lightest type, which the country does not produce. The pre-salt oil, however, is lighter than the one already explored in Brazil. Yet, the pre-salt oil should only reach the market in 2015 or 2020.
The leading Arab supplier of oil to Brazil, from January to September, was Saudi Arabia. Still, Brazil imported oil from other Arab nations as well, such as Libya, Algeria and Iraq. There was a reduction in sales from all of the aforementioned countries in the first nine months of the year. In September, though, the drop in imports of Arab oil was lower. The rate of reduction compared with September last year was only 6.6%, from US$ 590 million down to US$ 551 million. The product accounted for 89.4% of imports in September.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
