The Federal Government sanctioned the new legal framework for the natural gas market, providing alterations to activities related to the transportation and commercialization of natural gas. They seek to foster market competition and attract new players to the sector.
The Federal Government sanctioned the new legal framework for the Brazilian natural gas market (Law n. 14.134/2021), providing alterations to the legal framework on natural gas transportation, treatment, processing, storage, and commercialization. The new law, which revoked Law n. 11.909/2009, is designed to promote a more dynamic gas market and attract new players to the sector. It will be further implemented by the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP).
The new law’s main alteration to the rules for gas transportation and its related activities concerns the granting regime for authorizing operations (of those activities). It replaced the concession system of authorization with an act of authorization enacted by ANP. The authorization is applicable to companies constituted under the Brazilian law and located in Brazil.
The law also established a non-discriminatory provision for accessing infrastructure related to the treatment or processing of natural gas (article 28), and a market competition provision for reducing the concentration in gas supply (article 33), when applicable. It is also designed to facilitate natural gas imports.
The law is already force, while article 44 provided a three- to five-year transition period for current transportation service contracts. According to article 45, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) and ANP will promote the harmonization of state legislations with the new framework.
In that sense, MME, through the Monitoring Committee for the Opening of the Natural Gas Market (CMGN, in the Portuguese acronym), enacted a good regulatory practices manual (available in Portuguese) for harmonizing state legal frameworks related to the distribution of canalized gas with the federal rules provided by the New Gas Market Federal Government Program, including the new law. The manual is the result of Public Consultation n. 12/2020, reported by the 16th edition of the Regulatory Report.
