Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vibra Energia conference call to release results of the 1st quarter, the 2nd quarter of 2023. This conference is being recorded. It can be accessed on the Company's website, www.ir.vibraenergia.com.br. The presentation is also available for download. We would like to inform you that all participants will be on listen-only mode during the Company's presentation. We'll start a Q&A session , when further instructions will be provided. Before proceeding, please bear in mind that forward-looking statements are based on the assumptions and beliefs of the Company's management and on information currently available to the Company. These forward-looking statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors and analysts should keep in mind that factors referring to the macroeconomic scenario, operating factors, and other factors could lead results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Today, we have with us Mr. Ernesto Pousada, CEO, and Mr. Augusto Ribeiro, CFO, besides the presence of some of the company's executives. I would like now to give the floor to Mr. Pousada, who will begin the presentation. Thank you, please, you can may proceed, Mr. Ernesto.
Good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to be here with you, presenting the results for the 2nd quarter of 2023. We have Augusto Ribeiro here. He took his role in July this year. The first slide shows our great management of operational variables.
I believe that we had a number of aspects impacting our results, among which very significant impact with diesel prices reductions. This impacted the inventory costs for us. We also need to consider imports of Russian diesel. Vibra didn't do these imports, even so, we were able to accommodate our results by efficient management. First, we start with our EBITDA. We have BRL 101 per cubic meter. We also have operational cash generations. We are very much focused on that. We were able to generate operational cash flow of BRL 900 million. This is ever more present in the cash allocation for the company. We have BRL 910 million in adjusted EBITDA.
That is 43% below the 2nd quarter of 2022, but 32% compared to the 1st half of 2023. We can see that we are in a recovery trends, even though we do have the impacts regarding the Russian diesel and just mind that we have not imported Russian diesel. Another important highlight under our management is -4% in the 1st quarter of 2023, and we have a growth of 0.5% in the 2nd quarter of 2022. Way below inflation. That represents R$600 per cubic meter, and this reflects the company's cost management. The sales volume is over 9 million cubic meters, +3% considering the 1st quarter of 2023, and -3% in the 2nd half of 2022.
This is the contracted clients and flagged service stations are the focus now. You see all of the lines here in our P&L, so more assistance in the Company management. This next slide shows that in the 2nd quarter of 2022, we had a expressive increase in diesel prices, especially, and since then, and especially in the 2nd quarter of 2023, we have a very relevant drop in prices, and this impacts the variation of our inventories and in turn, our EBITDA results. Just bear in mind that, during the 2nd quarter, we have put in place a very efficient price management policy. We are working strongly on pricing. Of course, we work jointly to try to streamline both our results and that of our clients. Here, the service station networks.
Interesting facts: We became leaders for premium and added-value products. Our market share has been growing, and now we have 44%. We lead the premium fuel market. Another important point is that it's been growing, even considering our own product mix. We have grown by 2 percentage points in our own mix. Evermore, we want to improve in the premium segment. Of course, this is interesting for us because there's more value in this product for us. Now, we have a lot of progress in our value proposition. You see that in market share for flagged stations, you had a growth compared to the 1st quarter of last year, and we also had a drop in the unflagged stations.
This shows the focus of the company to support flagged stations, and we want to work to increase the ANAM, to have a good value proposition for our flagged stations, our clients, so that we can move forward, bringing our brand, our flag into the future and bringing more value to our clients and to Vibra. I just said, EBITDA is pretty much in line with the 2nd... With last year. In 2023, in the 1st quarter, we did have some impacts, but this consistency shows the that we are working on a solid, on solid grounds here. Some interesting progress here. We have over 3,000 stations with the new brand in all of the states in Brazil. We have over 40,000 assistants that have been registered.
We want to engage our assistants, assistants, so that we have a more consistent value proposition at the end of the day. The Premmia action involved over 4,700 stations, and it generated a lot of engagement in TikTok and other social media. We had a record engagement into TikTok. We want to be closer and closer to our clients, our consumers, and show the value of Vibra, right? We also have the Premmia. We want to bring value to consumers. Our app has grown in payments for by 75%, 79% in transactions, and 55% in active users in this quarter. There's a new partnership with Smiles as well. This is a consumer loyalty tool, and we are sure that Premmia is going to be part of our consumer's daily lives, lives. We have BR Mania, expansion continues.
We have 1,235 active shops. We have 90 new ones to come by December this year. Sales are 17% up in the quarter. 20% accretive in the year. We have 37% of the shops already adjusting to the new branding. 190 shops are on the process of rebranding their layouts. This is B2B. There were some difficulties regarding inventory, mainly the Russian diesel. Remember, Vibra did not import Russian diesel. This is, B2B is the area where we see most impact here. Our overall that figure here is 3,365,000 cubic meters in the 2nd quarter. We were able to hold our grounds, the biggest impact was on market share and on our margins.
When we look at the market share overall, TRE was the most, TRR was the most affected one. It is the last one in the lower right corner. The difficulties we have faced, regard maintaining market share and assisting direct clients. You see that we have some growth in diesel consumer market shares. You see 30% there. Bear in mind that this will be our focus to be working directly with our clients. As for jet fuel, we have some reduction in volume, but we are recovering. Some impact regarding the reduction of jet fuel prices has impacted us. Now with oil going up, jet fuel should also follow. As for lubricants, we have been growing this market. This is going to be our focus. We want to increase the lubricant business significantly.
Lubrax, our brand, is a product that we want to work on not only for retail but also in B2B. We believe that we can gain share and Company image doing that. This slide talks about energy. We had a very important milestone with the energization of the Hélio Valgas plant, with a design capacity of 662 MW. It can provide power to 800,000 households. The projects under Comerc are starting to be started up, and we don't see them reflected on the EBITDA. In the 2nd quarter, we had BRL 55 million, but as of now, we are going to see this escalating in the coming months. As the plants are started up, as Hélio Valgas was, we will see this.
We have 1,604 MW at the operating capacity, 50,000 clients. We also have launched a carbon, Mesas de Carbono, with them, and it's a program. In the 1st half of the year, we have been refining this with Clarissa coming in, and we'll start harvesting the, the whole efforts, the, the results of the efforts then. Here we have the renewable energy plants. We have Hélio Vargas and São João do Paracatu, with the solar energy, and we also have some other plants. It's wind energy in Babilônia and Rio do Vento. We have implemented 70% of our renewable energy pipeline. When we started the Comerc project, the promises were many, but the capacity is being delivered.
We now have delivered installed capacity of 1,407 MW, we have 425 yet to be implemented. We have 184 MW installed and a pipeline for implementation, 266. As you can see, the units are close to being started up, we are very strong on that. Here, some of our partners. We have Evolua Etanol with 943 million cubic meters in volumes in transactions with Evolua in the quarter. We have about 102,000 cubic meters exported in six ships and adjusted EBITDA of BRL 19.5 million. This represents 25.9% of the ethanol market share in Brazil.
Now, we are now leaders in the ethanol market in Brazil. Historically, we have never been before. In the 1st half of 2023, we have been so. Evolua Etanol will certainly help us boost that. We also have ZEG Biogás. They have started up the Jambeiro Biogás plant. It's still a small production of 30,000 cubic meters per day, we see a potential of 2 million cubic meters with ZEG produced daily. It's a great opportunity for our B2B business. We also have EZVolt, with over 16,000 monthly recharges and 630 chargers that have been contracted in 13 Brazilian states. What we are trying to seek is to have an electrical corridor.
How can we make sure that the consumers will have power available to recharge their cars when they need? EZVolt is our partner to put that into place. We have over 4,500 users in the app and the, the recharging app and everything. An important milestone in the quarter was the new organizational structure. We have Mr. Ribeiro, our new CFO. Clarissa, responsible for renewable energy and ESG, she started in August. Vanessa, business products and market. Bernardo, B2B commercial. Flávio, commercial retail. We have Henry, our general counsel, legal. Aspen with people and technology, and Marcelo Bragança with operational logistics and sourcing. It's a very diversified group. We have seasoned professionals, professionals that have been in Vibra for a long time. We also sourced other people from the market, from the energy market. It's a very diversified team.
I believe it's a winning team that will deliver results consistently in the coming years. Finally, this is the last slide, but not less important, is, and it addresses sustainability. We have had some acknowledgement that I would like to highlight here. We have the Best in ESG, granted by the Exame magazine, and this is the second time in a row that it happens. We were also acknowledged as the second-best company in Brazil in ESG practices in the Caliber ranking, ESG ranking. We were also granted an important award by the innovative workplaces in Brazil. We were among the 20 most innovative companies in Brazil. In safety and environment, we have the Yellow May movement. We had Formula One pilot, Felipe Massa, engaged in a campaign to raise awareness regarding traffic, traffic accidents.
We also have the Faça Bonito, a campaign for human rights, that to address sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. We also have the energy transition. We have made a call for, for proposals to have projects by women, and these are, of course, ESG projects. This is the sustainability results we have for 2023. I'll close, highlighting what I said in the opening. It was a challenging quarter, but we started showing our capacity of our operational management and to address each line in our P&L. We have a lot of room for improvement, of course, but when we look at the results against others, considering all the setbacks we had, we are very optimistic. Thank you very much, and I will now open for Q&A.
We will start a question and answer session now for investors and analysts. The first question is Mr. Luiz Carvalho, UBS BB. Hello, Ernesto. Thank you very much for allowing me to ask this question, Augusto. I think, I want to welcome you and wish you the best of luck in your new role. I have some questions, maybe for Ernesto, in regards to fuel distribution. The 1st half of the year was very peculiar, with the Russian diesel coming in, a change in behavior at Petrobras, as they changed management as well. We saw an relevant increase in diesel and gasoline prices today. Could you share what your take is for the next six to 12 months? What is the perspective you have on the market? How do you think this can impact your...
The, the way you have to compete with other companies? The second question is about the new org chart here. You have Hélio Valgas plant starting up. Clarissa has just come into the company, right? I'd like to see what the company's strategy is for the longer term. Do you have an idea of having a spin-off for Comerc Energia? What is your take on that? Thank you. Thank you, Luiz, for your questions. Starting with the fuel distribution, as I have mentioned before, and we can see that in the 1st half of the year, but the thing is, our operational management work has been quite solid and relevant here. The Company has worked day in, day out, to look at all the aspects of the business.
From inventory, we have daily meetings to talk about prices, inventory costs, right? If you look at this P&L, it's been very well addressed. Now, Petrobras is our biggest partner. It's a chosen partner. In the 2nd quarter, we chose to buy expressive volumes from Petrobras. Regardless of Petrobras' pricing policy, we have done our part of the deal to make sure that we move forward. We advanced year by year in our margins, looking at different aspects such as inventory, pricing approach, and cash generation. Looking at each of these aspects to deliver more value to our stockholders. I can't stress enough that we have to do that, ensuring that we have successful retailers as well. I have nothing to add regarding inventory. Our inventory is pretty standard now.
We have been covering the demands of our clients at a normal rhythm. Our inventories are at a very standard level, if I may. I can't make any inferences about future prices. What I can say is that we must have a management that is very close to the business, regardless of prices going up or down, so that the Company can try to streamline results, whether prices are going up or down, and making sure that our clients are also maintaining their margins. As for your question regarding Comerc, you mentioned that Clarissa has arrived. She arrived 15 days ago. There's not a lot to say for the time being. What I can, however, say is that we haven't made any decisions regarding the spin-off or something like that.
What we are going to do in the second half of the year is to invest, to delve into this business, really. I'm sure that one of the purposes here is to leverage synergies in the business. It has a lot of synergies with our B2B clients, and we are going to check what's the adequate capital structure for the business. Once these leverages are defined, we'll go to Phase 2, which is whether Comerc will remain with Vibra or not. I don't see this as a short-term discussion. The discussion that needs to happen now is how to streamline the processes and our actions for the next year. As Clarissa arrives, she will she certainly bring more clarity to us. Okay, thank you very much. I would have some more questions, but I will now... Thank you. We have Mr.
Pedro Soares from BTG Pactual with his question. Good morning, Ernesto, Augusto. I have two questions. You mentioned the focus on the flagged stations, the B2B clients that have been contracted already. I'd like you to discuss this, considering the loss of share that you have mentioned, especially for the unflagged stations. I'd like you to make to consider that regarding the impact on the stocks in the quarter, the inventory in the quarter. Considering margin, could you elaborate on that? Do you believe that we would still have more loss in the spot segment, if I may? Do you see that the less profitable product cycle is coming to an end? That, of course, includes the unflagged stations and the TRR progressing in a more stable way in the coming quarters.
My second question regards supply, and it's somehow a follow-up of the previous question. Of course, that with the Petrobras price increase, this will change a bit. You stressed that you didn't import Russian diesel in the 2nd quarter. If you can be, please comment on that. Would that maybe be a possibility if that makes financial sense for the group, or are you still leaving that out for a prolonged period? Thiago, thank you very much for your question. For the first question regarding market share, I will repeat what I have been saying since I joined the Company. The thing is, there is an opportunity to, for our brands to evolve and for our market share to be maintained. Vibra doesn't want to, to leave any market share out.
This movement that happened this quarter was not a deliberate movement to improve our client base. It was about the Russian diesel. As the Russian diesel came in, if you look, most of our losses were in TRR. We see that that was completely atypical or out of the ordinary. I'd like to reinforce that. The Company management understands that we'll gradually improve our margins while we keep our market share. I believe that we have increased our share in the past few years, and we have no intention of reducing this. This is going to happen gradually. No abrupt movements are going to happen, but gradually we are going to recover this market share that was lost, and we will, resume or go back to the size we were before.
But that's a gradual process, and this is very much more related to the Russian diesel coming in. The second question regarding the Russian diesel, even though this diesel is not available for a number of reasons at the moment, we have started to include the Russian diesel in our sourcing alternatives we are considering. There are two points that need to be considered here. We have invested quite a lot to make sure that we had all the operational processes under control, so that we could well control the operations. That includes compliance, finances, operations. All of the teams have very much clarity as to how to properly do the diesel, the Russian diesel operation in terms of compliance.
Another point I'd like to say is that Vibra is not going to benefit or take advantage from opportunities in a bad way. We only made this approach when we saw that that was something that really did make sense, and it was not opportunistic. The Russian diesel has been included as our sourcing alternatives. At the moment, it cannot be imported because there's a price cap issue, so that affects compliance. We have a robust operation to ensure best practices if that happens. We have also understood that when oil prices are low, diesel, the Russian diesel can be a structural alternative for the country. Therefore, it's been included in our sourcing alternatives as an structural way rather than an opportunist one. Thank you, Ernesto. That was very clear. Thank you very much.
Next question, Gabriel Barra, Citi. Hello, Ernesto, Augusto. It's great to talk to you. Thank you for answering my questions. Augusto, good luck and the best of luck, in fact, in your new position. I will start with a question with you, I hope you don't mind, for you. Can you tell us about your first impressions? I know you have been here for a few months, not even 100 days yet, but I'd like to see, to, to, to hear you talk about your first impressions and what the main focus is for the new company CFO. What would Augusto's major priority would be? Now, my question to Ernesto, Ernesto, is been addressed here. The thing is that the competition dynamic has changed over this year.
Vibra, the Vibra brand has a lot of value to consumers, but then we have to think of sourcing. You need to have fuel available for your network. We have been seeing some news about adjustments, shortage of fuel. Fuel, because the domestic market has become more complex. I'd like to hear your take about the Petrobras fuel pricings going up today, and also how Vibra is going to behave in a scenario where you might have less diesel, for example. What does Vibra, how does Vibra intend to behave in such a market? What kind of guarantees you can give to your dealers and things like that. If you could talk a little bit about how Vibra will behave in such a market, that would be great. Thank you, Gabrielle.
The first 45 days flew by. It's amazing. I'm very well impressed with Vibra. The team is very energetic. They always want to do the best. Of course, it's an industry that is different from others I've been in the past. You have a volatile company, so the margins are very small. We have a lot of new energy, renewable energy, a lot of new things that can be done. The thing is, there are a lot of opportunities. If I can summarize this, I would say that our focus needs to be in operational excellence. Short- term, medium-term actions, sourcing, follow-up, balance between imports, exports, better distribution, having inventories in the proper locations, focus on the customer service, value for our flag services. These are all aspects that we can work on.
Of course, as Ernesto has mentioned, gradually we will recover the market share that was somehow lost. The first 45 days were interesting. I like the team that I found, and we are now seeing what we can do in terms of continuous improvement. A lot of things were very well done before, but there's always room for improvement. Thank you very much for your question and for the opportunity to allow me to talk a little bit about that. Well, Gabriel, let me give you some food for thought in regards to sourcing. In the past two weeks or months, we had two very interesting aspects related to sourcing. The first is the Russian diesel. I can't say that enough, there are no regrets regarding our decision of not getting it. We are focused on value in the medium term.
We needed to assess if that was not opportunistic or anything, and once we realized that that is the case, we decided to include it as a sourcing alternative, as the competition was already doing. So this decision brought some impacts that were mitigated, and they were mitigated with operational management, operational excellence, and you will see this more and more in our results. I would like to remove these myths regarding adequacy. We're really talking here about image management. Vibra has enough products for our regular customers, so there's no shortage of product. What we need to do here is to manage image. You will see this more and more. We need to manage our business, preserving our inventories for any time when there is speculation in the market. We will not leave our clients short in product.
You might have some issues with clients that wanted to have more than what was agreed, that's one-off. This is what we have to do. Managing this is the tool we have to date. We need to balance our inventories and manage the brand. I need to be very clear here, because there's been a lot of discussion and on this, but I can say that this is based on image management. Our flagged stations are receiving their products as usual. Just our flagged clients with regular volumes, with contracted products, it's all good. I have received no calls from many clients. We are really delivering the standard volumes for them. That's very clear, and that's why I raised this issue here. I'd like to understand the, the competitive scenario here.
It looks to be better for you. At least, as I see, when you work with sourcing, that is a more spot approach. Is that right? Yes, no doubt. This is our market. I have worked in commodities, and the market changes, so non-recurring effects are very welcome when they are positive. This is not what feeds us. What feeds us is operational results, what we can manage, the results that we can deliver. If you look forward, the market, yes, changes quite fast, but in the coming years, we see a more favorable market in the coming months. That was very clear. Thank you very much. Next question, Bruno Amorim with Goldman Sachs. I have a follow-up question on supply and market dynamics and consequences.
When you close the imports window, Vibra has a lot of access to Petrobras, and that's a benefit. On the other hand, when Petrobras is closer to parity, importation becomes more profitable, and Vibra is also an important player in imports. My question is: In your understanding, in which of these scenarios does Vibra best perform, or do you believe that the company can deliver similar results in both scenarios? Well, I've been with Vibra for six or seven months only, but what I can tell you is that we can deliver results in both scenarios. The 2nd quarter somehow shows this. The absolute results is not yet what we planned for, for recurring effects.
There, what I can say is that the Vibra's positioning in the country is very well to be the most competitive player with the Petrobras molec, molecule or important molecule, whichever. We used to say that we were the biggest importers of diesel products in the country. We have been so at some point, and if that makes sense in the future, we'll go back to that. Vibra is ready to work on either scenario. The idea is that i- regardless of scenario, we need to work B2B, very close by. A quick follow-up, Ernesto. Thank you. Do you understand that the company is currently where it should be when it comes to exports efficiency, or if you need to export more, you will need to do some investments or something?
We have had significant progress, but there is room for improvement still. This is not a process that happens overnight. Part of the results that you see here are already related to gain and efficiency, but it's continuous work, and we work diligently to be more efficient in our opportunities. The 2nd quarter has captured some of these opportunities, but there's still room for more. Thank you. Next question, Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley. Good morning, everyone, for taking my question. My question is, if you think of the capital structure, we are, the company is close to a leverage peak. I'd like to see, what is your take on the deleveraging that is to happen? Is it going to happen quickly? Do you have some strategies to bring some fluidity to the whole process?
Along the same lines, my next question is: How can you think about having a better, a better or, or clearer discussion on dividend distribution? Well, starting with the second, we'll continue with our policy, with the best efforts to distribute 40%. I don't think this is going to change. This is the path we expect to take forward. As for the capital structure, we will continue working, and we intend to go back-- to resume a 2x-2.5x leverage. This, of course, will depend on improving our EBITDA. The 1st half of the year was quite complicated. I showed you a graph that showed price reductions of diesel especially, but also of the other products, and this affected our EBITDA. We did generate quite a lot of cash.
In the 1st quarter, we still continue working with that and everything. It's not a cash generation issue. When we look at the next coming months, you see that the leveraging is going to slow down considerably. The idea is to keep working, to have it between 2x-2.5x. Well, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you reach, for example, 1.5x leverage, would you increase dividend distribution? Well, the 2x- 2.5x strategy is a vigorous strategy, right? Now, if we have 1.5x, and if that is the case, we need to have an internal discussion as to how to approach that.
Today, considering the scenario as is today, what I can say is we need leverage to be between 2x and 2.5x. As to how the capital is going to be better allocated, if we reach 1.5x, this is something that we still need to discuss. We need to take one step at a time, but our market is too volatile. There are many variables, variables that will affect our accounting aspects. When we get to 2x or 2.5x, then we'll think about the next step. Then eventually, if we get to 1.5x, then we will have the proper discussions to allocate this cash. Okay, thank you very much. Next question by Leonardo Marcondes with Bank of America. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for answering my questions. Most of them have already been answered.
My first question is about the competitive environment, and I talk a lot about the current market. Could you elaborate on the margins that you have seen in August? I know that you cannot talk about the figures, but I'd like to maybe see if your margins for the 3rd quarter are better than those of the 2nd. My second follow-up question is about the Russian diesel. You haven't imported it yet to date, but I'm sure that you are following up on the prices and parity and things like that. Could you talk about what your take is on parity and how Petrobras plays a role in that?
As for the competitive environment, what I can say is that it is better for us as compared to the 1st quarter or even the first half of July. We see the environment being more favorable to our business, and we'll continue with the image management. We intend to deliver consistent results despite non-recurring events. Every quarter, we want to progress and to improve our margins gradually. This is our main takeaway message here. We will see progress in the branding and margins. You will see margins going up gradually. I see that the next quarter we will see more favorable margins. Yes. As for the Russian diesel parity, this has just happened, but of course, this is very similar to international parity, so we need to consider that carefully.
Just mind that the Russian diesel is not even available today. Today, the diesel that we can import comes from the Gulf, but the idea is parity is going to favor imports as well, okay? Next question, Regis Cardoso with XP Investimentos. Hello, Ernesto, Augusto. Thank you very much for answering my questions. Can you hear me well? Great. I have a quick follow-up question. The first one is on the, the, the Russian diesel. Do you know, on top of your head, what the figures were comparing the Russian diesel and the Gulf diesel? Maybe you can talk about some figures so it's clearer for people. Maybe if people see the figures, they'll see that the Russian diesel is no longer interesting nowadays. The next aspect I'd like to discuss is inventories.
We have higher inventories in the 1st quarter, so I'm presuming that your inventories are going up. I don't know why. Maybe it's a competitive strategy or something, but this could pay off now, because if your inventories are high and the prices have gone up, that's a good thing. Can you talk a little bit about the inventory and inventory management? Another quick question is about the drop in sales for coke. Do you have any changes in the sales strategy for coke or something? Coke, let's start with coke. Coke is a very specific product, so the market is limited, and therefore, there was a stronger retraction there. Basically, it stemmed from a conception reduction of a major client of ours.
We don't see anything structural happening, but this is a discussion that we will have to keep an eye on or keep doing. If you look at, as for your question regarding Russian Gulf product, you see that the spread between these two is right now about BRL 100. It has been BRL 200, BRL 300, but it's BRL 100 currently. Between BRL 100 and BRL 300. Regarding increased inventories, we have increased our inventories indeed, and as you mentioned, it is something that is very welcome at this point, but it stemmed much more because the Russian diesel was coming in, sales opportunities that we had, also opportunities that we had to get product with Petrobras. We made a mix that made sense to us.
Since the beginning of the year, I've been saying that Vibra is not here to speculate over purchase. We are here to manage our operations. Increasing the inventories was about operational management. We found interesting prices. We decided to stock it. Basically, that was how we managed the inventories. Yes, there's no doubt that it's a very welcome... Well, it, it's a strategy that is very welcome because we start the next quarter with higher inventories as the prices are high. Just a point I'd like to mention here, price cap and parity are different concepts here. We need to consider a maximum margin in an operation. This is defined by a price cap. Theoretically, countries should not be able to buy from Russia if they are selling over their price cap.
Vibra is signatory to a number of international agreements and needs to comply with that. Well, thank you, Ernesto, for your question. Just a follow-up question. Well, when you can buy at a price cap, and the price cap is higher than our local market price, I would say it's time to buy. I would like to understand that a little bit better. What happens is that this diesel oftentimes goes to other places where sanctions are not relevant. This diesel finds its way in the world, it's in regions, that where sanctions are not important. They are able to sell over price cap to markets that are not, limited by sanctions or compliance, anything. Vicente Falanga, next question. He is with the Bradesco BBI. Thank you, Ernesto. Welcome, Augusto. My question is about the B2B volume in the last quarter.
It reduced, consistently, and you explained that this is to do with the TRR market. It makes sense to me. We also see that coke volumes are below expected. I'd like to know what you expect to happen in terms of coke volumes from now on. If you can please elaborate on those aspects. Well, Vicente, I think the biggest impact that led to reduction in B2B, is not about coke, because this is not going to change the game for the company or the company's results. Now, diesel and TRR or increasing diesel in B2B, this is what's going to be a game changer. I will say that again. In the coming years, I, I expect to see an increase in clients, direct clients, which doesn't mean that we're not going to sell for TRR.
We didn't sell for TRR because the Russian is okay, right? Yes, gradually we are going to recover this market share, especially in TRR. This is not going to happen overnight. We don't want to have any trouble with margins and prices, the idea is that eventually, we will resume our market share position with direct clients, contracted and spot, both, to recover some of the volumes, and that includes, of course, TRR volumes that were lost due to the Russian diesel. The loss or the drop or the more significant drop in volumes in B2B is non-recurrent. Yes, I'd like to talk, to see about the lubricant. Are they doing well? Are you talking about volume ramp-up? Yes, yes. How are lubricants doing? Well, Vanessa has joined us in April. We are now developing our long-term plans.
We have great ambitions for the lubricants business. The volumes have improved timidly still, but we see a lot of opportunities in expanding the lubricant business, especially with higher volumes and lubricant. Lubricant margins are sound, we need to increase volume consistently. By the end of 23 and throughout next year, we are going to see important progress in the lubricant business. In addition to Vanessa, we brought in an seasoned executive in the lubricant industry. We are investing to grow the lubricant business. It is going to happen towards the end of the year and especially next year. Thank you, Ernesto. The Q&A question is now closed. We'd like to hand the floor to our CEO, Mr. Ernesto Pousada, for his final remarks. Well, once again, thank you very much.
It's very good to be able to share results with you. I'd like to reinforce a point I made sometimes during this call. Regardless of the price variations, we cannot control, regardless of the current impacts in our inventories, we are increasingly confident on a consistent operational model that will consider volume, prices, market share, generated cash flow. Each one of these aspects, when we focus on them, we will see opportunities and value leverage that will increasingly bring important value to Vibra and to stockholders. I will now close. Thank you very much. I'll see you in the next quarter. This call is closed. Thank you very much for your attendance. Have a great day.