جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "decommissioning" در نشریات گروه "فقه و حقوق"

Decommissioning of petroleum installation and facilities is part of E&P operations that consists of plugging of wells, dismantling of installations and clearance of the site. Technical, financial, economic costs and environmental issues associated with the decommissioning process, compel host countries to enact laws and regulations dealing with all the details of decommissioning operations. However, in some countries, there is no system of law governing the decommissioning project. In the countries with the decommissioning law system, the contents of the laws and regulations are different due to the level of technology and environmental awareness. Identifying law-making gaps in the decommissioning law system of Iran requires the comparative study of the other countries′ laws and regulations especially oil pioneer countries. Therefore, this article at first, analyses the laws and regulations governing the decommissioning of oil and gas installations in the countries with more production capacity such as the UK, the US, Norway and Canada and the countries with lower production capacity such as Nigeria, China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Indonesia and the Netherlands comparatively and then deals with decommissioning laws and regulations in Iran.

Decommissioning Floating Production, Processing, Storage and Offloading of Oil and Gas units as new phenomena, follow the technical rules related to the legal regime of the marine and oil and gas industries. The legal regime applicable to these units in International and domestic systems is a challenging one, because these units are subject to various local laws and international conventions that peruse different objectives. In some countries they are subject to the legal regime of marine structures, while in some others they follow the legal regime of ships. At present, considering the discrepancies in the approaches of states and the ambiguity as to the legal status of these units on the one hand, and in the absence of a comprehensive international convention or international customs on the other hand, the unification of the rules relating to these units seems unlikely in the near future. Nevertheless, in the current situation it seems appropriate if one can apply the legal status of marine structures and installations to the floating production, processing, storage and offloading units with due regard to the technical complexity, objective of the instruction, and type of function.

After exploration and production operation in an oil or gas field comes to an end, decommissioning of facilities and installations becomes inevitable. Difficulty of this process results from unprofitability of the field and duty to financing the decommissioning costs at the same time. This fact that the decommissioning process starts when the field is unproductive, falls host states and international oil companies in vague conditions in respect of decommissioning costs. Unlike many developed countries, in oil exporting countries such as Iran, there is no suitable legislative framework for dealing with the different aspects of decommissioning process. For this reason, the contractual terms are used to cover this deficiency. This article, first examines contractual arrangements governing decommissioning process and rights and obligations of each party in this area and then analyses the Iranian oil contracts in compliance with examined arrangements.

Oil installations decommissioning is process by which will be decided how moved or dismantled the installations that have reached to end of their lives. Although this is a relatively new topic but especially since the 1990, has attracted much attention at the international level, and a major concern for governments and industries since that time is removal of these installations, and for this reason much efforts has been made to explain various aspect of this topic. Although these efforts have been effective in clarifying various aspect of the decommissioning but still many question especially about the legal aspect of it remains. The main question about this topic is, what is the state’s obligation in the international level? Since we’re not sure on the issue, study of the various documents in the international and inter-regional level and examining of domestic laws of the leading countries on the issue and finding a way for resolving of the problems is the main purpose of this paper.

The decommissioning of offshore oil and gas installations is considered as one of the most complicated problems of our time, that comprises broad legal, economic, political and environmental issues. Although such factors have always been important in oil and gas industry, but with the decline of production from oil and gas fields since mid 1980s it has turned into a serious challenge for the oil companies and states. This paper seeks to identify the challenges faced by the oil and gas industry regarding the issue of decommissioning of offshore oil and gas installations, and furthermore to identify the regional and international applicable law on decommissioning and their efficiency. The paper concludes that the existing international regulations lack the required consistency and efficiency. Moreover, currently integration or formation of customary international law concerning decommissioning of offshore oil and gas installations would be impossible due to lack of necessary basis for the creation of such rule.