On Friday, February 12, 2021, Region 6 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published notice in the Federal Register at 85 FedReg 9332 (February 12, 2021) of its January 15, 2021, approval the State of Texas’ October 12, 2020 submittal to the EPA requesting partial National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) program authorization for oil and gas discharges (“Notice”). Here is the link to the Notice . A summary of actions leading up to the approval and general information related to the authority of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (“TCEQ”) to...

We review what happened in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum sector during the previous year – a year that saw a new marginal field bid round, an oil price crash and the onset of a terrible global pandemic. We also consider what we can expect in 2021 and if this will be the year the Petroleum Industry Bill finally overhauls the sector. What happened in legal matters? Upon his re-election in 2019, President Buhari set out an ambitious plan to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) by the end of 2020. He did not achieve that. However, progress was made: the PIB passed its second reading in both the...