Country
Assessment
No evidence regarding performance requirements could be found in the sources consulted.
According to the ANP’s interpretation of Article 2 of Law 9847/1999 , infractions involving flaring or venting may be subject to suspension of operation. Article 13 provides for the right to appeal. Under Decree 2953/1999 , nonmonetary sanctions can take the form of suspension of product supply; temporary suspension, total or partial, of the facility or installation; cancellation of registration of an installation; and revocation of authorization to carry out the associated activity. Sections 1 and 2 of the decree provide administrative penalty procedures; Sections 3 and 5 describe the appeal procedures. The defendant has 15 days to present evidence to contest the charges, and the ANP has 30 days to evaluate and decide on the case. If the decision rules against the operator, a second appeal can be mounted within 10 days. The ANP director will decide on the appeal within a maximum period of 30 days, starting from the date of the submission of the appeal.
ANP Joint Resolution No. 1/2013 contains the technical regulation for the measurement of oil and natural gas. According to Article 9 of Resolution 806/2020 , operators should provide the ANP with monthly production reports that include gas flaring and venting data. The report must be submitted by the 15th day of each month. Operators should report estimates of flared or vented associated gas for each of the following categories: safety scheduled maintenance works in progress, such as facilities under construction low gas production (insufficient volume of gas to be used) economics (associated gas whose use or re-injection would make the field uneconomic) venting in tanks (associated natural gas vented). The Model Contract-Concession Agreement for Exploration and Production of Oil and Gas explicitly mentions the requirement for reporting the volumes of gas flared or vented in Section 12. Licensees should submit to the ANP a monthly report on the production of each development area or field according to the applicable laws and regulations. Gas flaring and venting of natural gas with a variation above 15 percent of the volumes authorized in the PAP must be accompanied by due justifications. The licensee’s flaring and venting of gas should be included in the total production volume to be calculated for the purpose of paying royalties to the government. In this case, the flared volumes are monitored daily through the Production Inspection System (Sistema de Fiscalizacao da Producao).
Section 8.1.6 of ANP Ordinance 123/2000 stipulates that the PAP should include the volume of associated gas that would not be used or re-injected. The PAP must also demonstrate, based on economic evaluation, that the oil or gas production of the field would not be economically feasible if the gas so identified cannot be flared. To reduce flaring, the production of oil and gas may be started only after the installation of a system that utilizes or re-injects any natural gas, unless the ANP grants an exception upon consideration of the economic evaluation.
Article 44 of the Petroleum Law, 1997 requires the inclusion of associated gas use in the field development plan submitted to the ANP for approval after the declaration of commercial viability for a given project. The plan should consist of a schedule and investment estimate. Resolution 17/2015 provides guidelines for field development plans. Article 16(3) requires the submission of volumes expected for gas lift, internal consumption, re-injection, and flaring and venting, as well as mitigation plans for reducing gas flaring.
According to the ANP’s interpretation of Article 2 of Law 9847/1999 and subsequent decisions, infractions involving flaring or venting are subject to fines or nonmonetary sanctions. Article 3 states that the monetary penalty ranges from R$5,000 to R$2,000,000 (about US$960–US$3,800 as of September 2021). The ANP determines the monetary penalty for flaring or venting according to the seriousness of the infringement and the operator’s previous infraction history under ANP Ordinance 397/2018. Article 13 provides for the right to appeal. Decree 2953/1999 sets forth the administrative procedure for applying penalties for infractions committed in activities related to the oil industry and the national supply of fuels. Administrative sanctions may take the form of fines and nonmonetary sanctions (see the next section). According to Article 26, the fine should be paid within 30 days of the date of acknowledging the infraction. Failure to pay the fine within the specified period will subject the offender to a default interest rate of 1 percent and a late payment penalty of 2 percent a month or a fraction thereof. Section 3 of Resolution 806/2020 states that the operator is subject to a sanction each month the volume of gas flared or vented exceeds the level authorized in the most recently approved PAP. Articles 1 and 2 of Resolution 774/2019 allow operators to make the penalty payment in up to 60 monthly installments, in accordance with the conditions to be negotiated with the ANP. Data on fines imposed by the ANP during 2011–15 are available for download on the ANP website; information on fines for flaring and venting after 2015 has not been posted. During 2011–15, 177 fines were imposed, of which 94 were for flaring gas in volumes higher than authorized. These fines totaled R$121,700,000 (about US$23 million). The fines applied from 2016 onward have been published, but there is no specific information on flaring and venting during that period. In October 2014, the ANP fined Petrobras a total of R$6 million (about US$1.1 million as of September 2021) for flaring violations committed in the production of the onshore field of Fazenda Santa Luzia in the north of the Espirito Santo state. According to the ANP, Petrobras flared associated gas in April, May, September, October, and November 2010 in an amount higher than provided for in the Annual Production Plan. The company asked for the suspension of fines. On October 15, 2020, the courts upheld the fine imposed by the ANP. In another action, Petrobras requested the suspension of the collection of fines, totaling about R$16 million, for irregularities found in the measurement system of the Zephir I Platform in the Santos Basin. The irregularities were detected during an inspection by the ANP in March 2012.
Alberta’s legislation includes rising levels of sanctions depending on the seriousness of the violation, including production shut-in or suspension of application processing. Section 25 of the Oil and Gas Conservation Act, 2000 , authorizes the AER to cancel or suspend a license or approval for a definite or indefinite period. In particular, the AER may suspend well flaring permits for noncompliance. The AER’s decisions may be appealed under Section 36 of the Responsible Energy Development Act, 2012 . The AER Compliance Dashboard provides a compliance history of companies since 2014. The dashboard is searchable. Between 2015 and March 2023, it recorded 58 flaring violations. The AER handled almost all of them via notices of noncompliance or site inspections, but it also imposed administrative penalties in a few cases. Facilities may be shut if operators do not take corrective actions to comply with AER instructions within the time provided.
AER Manual 013: Compliance and Enforcement Program, 2020 , states that flaring, incinerating, and venting audits are required to ensure that flare systems are designed and operated appropriately and in accordance with approved conditions. The manual outlines the various tools available to the AER, including fees and monetary penalties. A schedule of fees can be found in Alberta Regulation 151/71: Oil and Gas Conservation Rules, 1971 . According to 244/18: Alberta Methane Emission Reductions Regulation, 2018 , an operator that violates venting limits, reporting requirements, or any other obligations imposed by the AER (mainly via Directive 060; see footnote 1) faces a maximum fine of Can$50,000 (about US$39,500 as of September 2021) for an individual and Can$500,000 (about US$395,000 as of September 2021) for a corporation. The Alberta Administrative Penalty Regulation, 2003, is an implementing regulation of the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, 2000 . The maximum administrative penalty that environmental regulators may impose is Can$5,000 (about US$3,950 as of September 2021) for each contravention or each day or part of a day on which the contravention occurs and continues.
Companies must accurately measure and report volumes of associated gas at all oil facilities. Requirements for measuring and reporting volumes of gas flared, incinerated, and vented are provided in Directive 017 and Directive 007: Volumetric and Infrastructure Requirements, and the Oil and Gas Conservation Rules . For the upstream sector, Section 2.13 of Directive 060 requires flared and vented solution gas to be reported monthly through Petrinex (Canada’s Petroleum Information Network) as per Directive 007. Section 5 of Directive 060 requires separate reporting of all monthly flared and vented volumes at gas processing plants. Flaring of sour gas must also be reported on the S-30 Monthly Gas Processing Plant Sulphur Balance Report. According to Section 8 of Directive 017, an annual methane emissions report must be submitted electronically to the AER by June 1 of the following calendar year. The first reporting period was 2019. The operator must include the following information in its annual methane emissions report: the volume of fugitive emissions by facility the corresponding mass of methane emitted by facility the type and date of survey the number of sources per site per facility.
According to Section 3 of Directive 060, 2020 , planned nonroutine flaring and incineration events require a temporary flaring or incineration permit from the AER, with advanced filing of proper documentation. Section 3 lists the conditions that require a temporary flaring permit and describes the requirements for obtaining the permit. All permit applications are published on the Public Notice of Application webpage. The AER may issue a single “blanket” permit to cover several flaring events at different sites in an area if requested by the licensee. Companies may request a variance from the requirements if they have sufficient justification. Licensees must provide specific engineering, economic, and operational information to justify flaring or incinerating gas volumes above the volume allowance threshold. The AER does not consider venting an acceptable alternative to flaring or incineration (except for inert gases subject to certain requirements; see Section 8.9). It requires that gas be flared if gas volumes are sufficient to sustain stable combustion or conserved.