International E&P Environmental Regulations: What Makes Sense for Our Industry?

Abstract

Abstract With the increasing awareness of environmental concerns associated with oil and gas exploration and production, and as the oil industry continues to grow in the regions of West Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America, it is imperative that our industry work together with local governments in protecting people and ecosystems. Too often, regulators in these areas find themselves without adequate resources to design effective environmental management programs and instead end up simply adopting and/or adapting regulatory programs developed by and for industrialized countries in North America, Europe, Australia, and/or South Africa. Regulations in these developed parts of the world tend to vary greatly by country because they consider not only the technical basis for the regulation, but local and regional concerns such as the need to protect other industries/resources (e.g., fishing), land development plans, public opinion, cost/benefit analysis and many other factors. This paper will describe the technical, historical and political contexts that have driven a few key regulations in the industrialized countries of North America and Europe. These factors will then be used to evaluate the net environmental benefit of specific regulatory approaches in developing countries and to outline a framework for how governments, local people, non-government organizations, and corporations can work together to prioritize and deal with local environmental and human health issues.