Vibra base in RS operates at half capacity; country’s agriculture recovers demand

Vibra Energia currently operates its Canoas base, in Rio Grande do Sul, with up to around 50% of its capacity, as demand is impacted by heavy rains in the region, which interrupted flows on the roads, it said this Thursday CEO Ernesto Pousada.

The executive highlighted that the base was stopped for a short period due to strong weather events, but that it soon reestablished its activities.

“It could be operating at 100%, but as the roads are all stopped, we still see a little less movement in this regard”, said the CEO, during a conference call with analysts about the company’s results in the first quarter.

“We are making a tremendous effort to keep our base in operation, offering fuel to the region”, highlighted the CEO, pointing out that local teams are also acting to mitigate the damage caused by heavy rains and that the company is also contributing with donations.

From the point of view of impacts on the business, Pousada highlighted that “it is relatively small for Vibra”, without going into details, but pointing out that it is a “quite important” state, but not one in which the company has the largest market share. .

The company is also studying how to help fuel retailers in the region whose stations were impacted.

“There is fuel that will have to be drained,” he said.

“We are also going to carry out a series of actions with Vibra to support our resale throughout Rio Grande do Sul, so that it can also return to operations more quickly and operate profitably, so it is a very sad situation, we are acting on several fronts so that we can mitigate and ease all this pain a little.”

FOCUS ON AGRICULTURE

At a national level, Vibra sees agribusiness recovering demand for fuels, after purchases at levels below expectations at the beginning of the year, impacting results.

According to Pousada, demand for fuels in the first quarter was limited, mainly due to issues in agribusiness, which experienced delays in the beginning of the planting period and in the flow of past soybean and corn harvests, but a recovery can now be seen.

“At the end of April, May, we are already seeing the market become more active, agribusiness returning with more strength, and we are really seeing another moment already being created in terms of demand, especially at the end of April and May,” he said.

Despite this, the company recorded record net profit for a first quarter of 789 million reais, a jump compared to the 81 million profit recorded in the same period last year.

The result, according to the company, was achieved through a focus on the portfolio of direct customers and branded stations, by reducing inefficiencies and improving processes throughout the distribution chain, reducing volatility in results and reaching new consistent levels of margins.

FUEL STATIONS

Pousada reiterated that the company seeks to gradually recover market share, after losing space over the last 12 to 18 months, but with a focus on profitability and management. Along this path, the company is also working on improving the quality of the service station network, in the process allowing the exit of 163 stations with low sales volume.

Vibra currently has 8,062 positions and is present in all federative units.

“We have opportunities to improve the quality of our salespeople, adding some more (stations), removing others that no longer have volume, and you can see that… these stations that left had very low volume, so there was no impact on our results” , he stated.

According to him, the number of positions “at some point may fall further”, however, there is no estimated number for this at the moment.

“We will continue to make investments so that we can have new flags and we will always be looking for stations with gallonage from 200 cubic meters upwards”, he stated.

Pousada also commented on its current strategy for fuel imports, which has sought to be more conservative and avoided acting with price speculation.

The CEO highlighted that he imported “a little more” at the end of last year and beginning of the year, given opportunities related to changes in taxes, but considered that the company’s movement was relatively “smoother” than that of other competitors.

“We want to bring a result through management, and not just an opportunistic result, we want to bring a result that is consistent quarter to quarter.”