The number is R$7.52 billion (about US$1.4 billion). That is the emergency credit opened by President Lula's government on Friday (9), through a provisional measure, a type of executive decree that takes effect immediately but needs later congressional approval. The money will pay subsidies to fuel production and imports, which in practice means the Treasury is spending to hold down the price of diesel, gasoline and ethanol at the pump.
According to Agência Brasil, the largest share, R$6.17 billion, goes to road diesel, the fuel used by the trucks that carry food to supermarkets across Brazil. Another R$1.35 billion covers subsidies for other petroleum derivatives. The funds will be managed by the ANP, Brazil's oil and fuel regulator.
Understand
Emergency credit is money outside the budget approved at the start of the year, allowed by Brazil's Constitution for urgent and unpredictable expenses. A subsidy (subvenção) is when the government pays part of a product's cost so the final price does not rise. Together, the two tools show the logic of the package: the Treasury picks up the bill so the liter does not get more expensive.
The credit funds programs created by earlier decrees this year, but it came with new announcements. According to CNN Brasil, the government zeroed federal taxes on gasoline, raising the tax waiver from R$0.63 to R$0.89 per liter, and increased the ethanol subsidy from R$0.25 to R$0.43 per liter. For a driver filling a 40-liter tank, the gasoline waiver means roughly R$36 off the bill compared with full taxation.
The new measures cost R$5.2 billion in just 30 days, the period they remain in force, according to government calculations reported by CNN Brasil. That is more than R$170 million per day leaving public coffers. Of the total, R$2.8 billion goes to gasoline, R$1.6 billion to a new R$1.40 subsidy on imported diesel, and R$800 million to ethanol.
The backdrop is the surge in oil prices driven by the conflicts in the Middle East, which pushes fuel costs up worldwide, as G1 reported. The decision comes 16 days before the presidential runoff, in which Lula seeks reelection against Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), a senator and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.