Natural gas: redistributing the economic surplus

The natural gas has a limited role in the Brazilian energy balance. This role in industrial countries and some developing countries is much more important. Historically this contrasting situation can be explained by the limited natural gas reserves Brazil used to have. Since the oil crisis however the Brazilian natural gas reserves increased substantially without a similar increase in the role of natural gas in the energy balance. The existing institutional arrangement generates a struggle for the economic rent generated by natural gas production and consumption that seems to be at the core of this question. Our paper estimates the economic rent generated by natural gas in Brazil and its distribution among producers and consumers: it points toward a new institutional arrangement that could arguably, generate a new role for the natural gas in the Brazilian energy balance. (author)