A Rio de Janeiro court has authorized the state regulatory agency to review requests for migration to the free gas market, but has maintained the suspension of actual customer transfers for lower-consumption users, stalling the opening of the sector.
The push to open the free natural gas market in Rio de Janeiro is facing a new legal chapter. Recently, the Rio de Janeiro State Energy and Sanitation Regulatory Agency (Agenersa) was authorized by the court to resume analyzing new migration requests, a key step for the industry.
However, the court ruling maintained the suspension of any actions that would compel the distributor Naturgy to execute the migration of consumers using less than 100,000 m³/day, preserving a significant barrier to full consumer choice in the natural gas market.
In practice, while Agenersa can process and review the applications, the actual implementation of these migrations remains blocked. Furthermore, the court order prevents the imposition of fines or other sanctions on CEG and CEG Rio (both part of the Naturgy group) for their refusal to carry out the transfers.
Essentially, the 2020 Agenersa regulation, which aimed to lower the minimum volume requirement for migration from 100,000 to 10,000 m³/day, remains suspended by court order.
Understanding the Court Ruling
Judge Alessandra Cristina Tufvesson de Campos Melo, of the 2nd Public Treasury Court of the Capital, acknowledged that the previous ruling from July, which prohibited Agenersa from even processing administrative acts related to migrations, was overly broad. Such a ban prevented the agency from conducting critical studies and analyses.
However, the judge emphasized that the risks that new migrations pose to the economic and financial balance of the concessions have not yet been sufficiently mitigated.
In its motion for reconsideration, Agenersa argued that the premise supporting the ruling in favor of Naturgy was outdated. The agency highlighted that the renegotiation of supply contracts with Petrobras, formalized in April via an amendment, had relaxed the minimum gas purchase limits.
Naturgy had pointed to these clauses as the main obstacle to allowing new migrations under CEG and CEG Rio concessions. Additionally, Agenersa noted that segments remaining in the captive market consume volumes above the floor and that supply contracts allow for a reduction in the daily contracted quantity if new migrations occur.
The Perspective of Regulators and the Concessionaire
In an interview with Estúdio Eixos during Sergipe Oil & Gas 2026, Vladimir Paschoal, a board member at Agenersa, expressed frustration with the judicialization of the process. He stated that the fear of concession imbalance due to migrations:
was never a real problem.
The judge, for her part, admitted that the contract amendment with Petrobras changed the configuration of gas purchase commitments for CEG and CEG Rio, but stressed that the economic risk for the concessionaires has not been entirely eliminated.
According to her, the amendment did not remove the minimum purchase obligation; it merely replaced it with an aggregate floor of 2.4 million m³/day. The judge also questioned whether the data showing consumption in the captive market reached 2.9 million m³/day in 2024 was sufficient to demonstrate that new migrations would be harmless.
The judge also criticized the Agenersa regulation that lowered the minimum volume for migrations, pointing out that the act was not preceded by a specific study on its economic and tariff impacts. She also questioned Agenersa‘s legal authority for such a change:
State legislation grants it regulatory, monitoring, and oversight authority over piped gas distribution concessions, and Law No. 14.134/2021 defers to state legislation the regulation of the option granted to the free consumer. The controversy seems to lie, rather, in the limits of exercising that authority, especially regarding the possibility of changing conditions set forth in concession contracts through regulatory acts and the resulting economic and financial consequences.
Market Impact and Next Steps
The judicialization of this case adds another chapter to the complex saga of the free gas market opening in Rio de Janeiro, which has been ongoing for two years. Although the free market took its first steps in 2024 with the migration of major consumers such as CSN, Ternium, and Gerdau, other clients continue to face repeated refusals from CEG and CEG Rio.
In June, Agenersa even ruled on cases of delaying tactics and ordered Naturgy to proceed with the migration of CSN and Braskem units, imposing fines on the distributors. Naturgy‘s commercial director, Giselia Pontes, noted in an interview with the Gas Week podcast that the disagreement was not the greatest impediment, but rather the risk of penalizing captive users.
Despite the agreement between Naturgy and Petrobras, companies like Braskem and CSN continue to have their migration requests denied. The situation underscores the persistent challenges to the full liberalization of the natural gas market in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
