Final Considerations

The objective of this research was of evaluating the concentration level of the bio­fuels industry market in Brazil from 2005 to 2012. Additionally, we calculated the concentration level for each Brazilian region, as well as the authorized productive capacity usage level and the impact of the industrial concentration in the average price and rentability of this industry.

For this research, we used the HHI and the CR to measure the evolution of industrial concentration level. The results point to a high concentration until 2006, when concentration of biodiesel industry started decreasing expressively, mak­ing the concentration in the industry atomistic, i. e., the industry has highly com­petitive features, considering the current concentration low level. These results reflect on the average price practiced by the 16 largest companies in the sector (that represent around 80 % of the volume produced in the country), and the other companies, where there was no statistically significant difference, where the aver­age prices practiced among both categories. This result can be explained by the hypothesis that companies would not have significant gains granted the sector’s low concentration, that prevents the significant reduction of auction prices, thus indicating some homogeneity of the prices practiced in the biodiesel industry in Brazil.

Besides the high competitiveness of this sector, it was possible to point out that most of the companies located in the south and central west regions, since these regions are known for their high soybean production, the main raw mate­rial used for biodiesel in Brazil. We also pointed out that the south region shows a high level of installed capacity usage level of its companies, pointing to a possible productive gap for this region, which represents 34 % of the national production.

On the other hand, we could see that the Brazilian ethanol industry concentra­tion is highly concentrated in the central-south region, where Sao Paulo (state) produces around 50 % of the Brazilian ethanol, considering that the concentration for ethanol distribution market has grown significantly in the last few years, which has implied better pricing opportunities and a better profitability for the sector, in detriment of consumers.