Brazil FinMin Durigan says subsidies could be maintained in 2027 if Brent prices remain elevated, and additional financial resources continue to be available

• Says the government cannot rule out maintaining taxes on oil exports in 2027, depending on developments in the diesel market

Fuel subsidy and export tax regimes of this kind sit at the intersection of fiscal capacity and crude benchmarks, and past episodes in commodity-exporting economies have tended to follow the same sequence: elevated Brent feeds through to domestic diesel costs, the treasury absorbs the gap, and the subsidy or tax is extended in rolling fashion rather than codified, making it a recurring headline rather than a one-off decision. The mechanism here is twofold. An export tax on crude raises fiscal revenue and can redirect barrels to domestic refining, while the diesel subsidy suppresses the pass-through to the domestic pump, with the two jointly determining how much of the Brent rally reaches the local market. Conditional language of this kind, 'if prices remain elevated' and 'if resources are available', is standard fiscal signalling from finance ministries managing an election-cycle fuel price; it keeps optionality without committing the budget. The tells to note are whether the diesel-crude spread narrows enough to ease the pressure, and whether the export tax stance hardens into legislation, since a binding tax would matter for the seaborne crude flow out of Brazil and for the marginal cost of domestic product supply. Commentary from a deputy minister is directional rather than binding; the substance arrives with the budget and any formal decree.