Decommissioning and Abandonment of Oil and Gas Facilities Legal Regime in Nigeria : Any Lesson from Norway, the UK and Brazilian Legal Frameworks?

Decommission of ageing infrastructure seem not to be part of the Nigerian petroleum industry lexicon as what exist in the petroleum Act is abandonment. By abandonment it means leaving behind materials in situ after the expiration of the life of the asset. But there are much more to abandonment. After the life of an assets, the facilities need to be recycled, relocated or safely put away to an environmentally acceptable place through an acceptable means in line with best industry practices. Av legal framework that provides for this is yet lacking in Nigeria. Although, petroleum exploration activities started more than six decades ago, Nigeria is still waiting for major catastrophe from various oil and gas aging assets before embarking on making a robust regulatory frame work to address the challenges associated with both abandonment and decommissioning. Decommissioning needs to be planned at the beginning of the life of an asset to prevent complications that may arise at a later stage of the asset This is because, decommissioning has phases and each phase must receive adequate attention receiving in order to forestall any future problems with associated costs. There are numerous features that make decommissioning a challenge in developing hydrocarbon nation such as Nigeria. These include the fragile offshore / marine environment, the technical limitations of facilities and the lack of adequate expertise of the assets. Others are: weak regulations that are sector specific or targeted at decommissioning and abandonment; financial implication for dwindling oil and gas assets and low crude oil prices in the global oil market These factors increase the uncertainty of governments and regulators even in most advanced hydrocarbon countries in tackling decommissioning and abandonment of facilities. The importance of decommissioning and abandonment cannot be overlooked in Nigeria .However, the inadequate regulatory frame work is a challenge. The increasing adverse impact of pollution onshore and offshore of the Nigerian environment is a concerned to all the stakeholders in the petroleum industry. Abandoned facilities are major cause of pollution in Nigerian environment. The cost of decommission is also not clearly set out in the Petroleum Act 1969, and who bears the risk and cost of decommissioning is most elusive if not ambiguous. UK and other hydro carbon countries have established regulatory framework for countries such as Nigeria. This comparison is importance because of the similarities of the two legal systems United kingdom and Nigeria and the fact that Nigeria stands to gain from evaluating the importance of decommissioning legal regime in UK . This work analyses the provisions of the existing law, the main parameters and challenges that affect decommissioning and abandonment in Nigeria. It shall draw from best practices from the UK legal framework in while making appropriate recommendations and what works and does not work in this area of law in Nigeria. The author agues for an early development of this part of the oil and gas law for a sustainable petroleum industry development in Nigeria