Renda do petróleo e royalties em Sergipe: análise a partir dos debates teóricos, das empresas no mercado mundial e da distribuição dos royalties no Brasil e em Sergipe

Abstract

Oil, its geographical distribution, and ownership have been central to economy and politics throughout the 20th century and are poised to remain so for the foreseeable future. In this early 21st century, news regarding international market prices, new reserve discoveries, OPEC decisions, coups d'état, and wars of occupation surrounding this resource are intertwined with the urgent need to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and transition toward a decarbonized economy. In the current context, climate change and the resulting extreme weather events driven by rising global temperatures can no longer be ignored. The Paris Agreement, signed by 196 countries in 2015, committed to measures for reducing GHG emissions, aiming to limit global temperature rise to between 1.5ºC and 2.0ºC. However, the UN Environment Programme's Production Gap Report (2023) reveals a discrepancy between production levels and what is necessary to meet climate goals. The report concludes that, at the current pace, fossil fuel production in 2030 will be 110% higher than required to limit warming to 1.5ºC and 69% higher for 2ºC. For 2050, projections indicate discrepancies of 350% and 150%, respectively. Brazil stands out among the leaders in oil expansion projects, with a forecast to reach 5.3 million barrels per day by 2030. Following the Pre-Salt layer, the SergipeAlagoas (SEAL) basin concentrates the sector's highest interest for oil and natural gas production and exploration, including high chances of new discoveries and the announced "Sergipe Águas Profundas" (Sergipe Deep Water) project. This dissertation analyzes the recent experience of receiving royalties in Sergipe and the challenges posed by a scenario of transformation in the oil industry and the expansion of royalty collection in the State. From a theoretical-methodological standpoint, the research is grounded in historical and dialectical materialism. The approach is both qualitative and quantitative. The main methodological procedures used include bibliographic research, document analysis, and descriptive statistics. The study critically reviews the "natural resource curse" theses and the neoclassical model of exhaustible resources, contrasting them with Marx's theory of ground rent. It demonstrates that the categories of differential rent and absolute rent offer distinct explanations of the phenomenon, enabling analysis that deepens the understanding of the contradictions inherent in the process of capital accumulation in general, and in the oil industry in particular. Furthermore, we seek to characterize the oil industry on a global scale to contextualize and compare it with the Brazilian and, subsequently, the Sergipano context. We gathered a dataset for Brazil and the world across multiple dimensions: production, consumption, refining, export flows, reserves, the production-consumption ratio, and major companies. The results demonstrate that the Brazilian concession regime provides lower government take compared to other countries; likewise, Petrobras's contribution has been smaller compared to other National Oil Companies (NOCs). Regarding Sergipe, we analyzed the characteristics of oil and gas production, gathering a broad set of information to characterize the industry in the state and its evolution over time. We conclude that the municipalities that were the largest beneficiaries of royalties between 1999 and 2024 did not show significant improvements in development indicators, such as the IFDM, corroborating findings from previous studies. The work concludes that the debate strictly focused on the application of royalties, while important, deflects attention from fundamental issues such as the social and environmental impacts of fossil fuel exploration and the privatization process of Petrobras.