the law governing the decommissioning of oil and gas installations

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.