regulations

Following a further extension of an agreement between state and federal agencies regarding oil and gas industry oversight on public lands, the Colorado state director of the Bureau of Land Management is seeking to provide a better understanding of just what that agreement does and does not do.

Among other things, Bill C-69 has replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, with an Impact Assessment Act, replaced the National Energy Board Act with a Canadian Energy Regulator Act, and made changes to the Navigation Protection Act.

Under President Trump, federal agencies have moved to roll back regulations for companies that extract, transport, and burn oil, gas, and coal. Government analyses show companies will save billions in compliance costs, but the trade-off often will be adverse effects to public health and environment.

Recently, Nigeria's Department of Petroleum Resources issued guidelines in furtherance of the objectives of the Flare Gas (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations, 2018.

A report from Norway’s Auditor General criticizes several aspects of the way health, safety, and the environment in the Norwegian oil and gas industry is followed up by the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway.

Regulations for US LNG exporters have been simplified to allow reporting of the country or countries of LNG deliveries, not country of end-use, to satisfy destination reporting requirement.

New local content regulations could speed up the pace of presalt oil production by more than 21 billion bbl by the mid-2020s. Karoon and Parnaíba Gás Natural are the first companies to apply to change their contract terms. Petrobras, Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Petrogal, and Anadarko are also interested.

Bureau Veritas made available its guide to decommissioning regulations in the UK continental shelf.

Two recent developments have the potential to significantly affect governmental enforcement actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; the Clean Water Act; and the Clean Air Act, among other environmental programs.

With the API and a multi-operator group passing separate programs aimed at reducing methane emissions, the discussions on what defines an acceptable level of regulation continues within the industry.