Impacto da infraestrutura logística no preço dos combustíveis: um estudo comparativo entre Amazonas e Rio de Janeiro 2022-2025

Abstract

The petroleum derivatives market in Amazonas presents a unique landscape, as the Amazon region is marked by structural challenges, the most significant of which is the logistical challenge. The state has characteristics that distinguish it from other federative entities, particularly in fuel supply, which relies on waterway transportation infrastructure and is at times vulnerable to the seasonal variations of the rivers. This study seeks to shed light on the existing structure of the Amazonian fuel market and its logistical context, comparing the logistical outcomes of the Northern region with those of the state of Rio de Janeiro — a state with consolidated infrastructure, multiple transport modes, a larger population, and favorable geographic positioning in relation to the country's financial and technological centers. The comparison was conducted based on data from the Price Survey System of the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP), covering the period from 2022 to 2025, revealing that the inauguration of the Santarém Distribution Base did not produce price convergence between Amazonas and Rio de Janeiro — on the contrary, a significant widening of the price differential was identified in the post-inauguration period, with the spread for S10 diesel increasing from 2.11% to 5.76% and for regular gasoline from 5.12% to 14.67%. These results are consistent with the three hypotheses of the research: the geographic scope of the terminal, primarily oriented toward the western Pará corridor; the effects of the historic droughts of 2023 and 2024; and the oligopolistic structure of the regional distribution market, which may have absorbed the logistical efficiency gains without passing them on to final consumers.