A systematic quality assessment of Environmental Impact Statements in the oil and gas industry

Abstract

The global economy relies heavily on oil and gas resources. However, hydrocarbon exploitation projects can cause significant impacts on the environment. But despite the production of numerous Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) to identify/mitigate such impacts, no study has specifically assessed the quality of EISs for both onshore and offshore oil and gas projects, with tested hypotheses. To address this research gap, our paper, for the first time, develops a modified Lee and Colley evaluation model to assess the quality of 19 sampled oil and gas project EISs produced from 1998 to 2008 in Nigeria. Our findings show that Project Description and Communication of Results are the main areas of strength. However, Environmental Impact Prediction, and Project Decommissioning, were among the key areas requiring attention. A key finding, though, is that Mann-Whitney tests suggest that there is no evidence that the quality of EISs for the latter period (2004-2008) is higher than that of the earlier period (1998-2004). We suggest that periodic systematic review of the quality of submitted/approved EISs (c. every 3-5years) should be established to monitor trends in EIS quality and identify strong and weak areas. This would help to drive continual improvement in both the EIA processes and the resultant EISs of technical engineering projects. Such reviews have the potential to illuminate some of the underlying problems of, and solutions to, oil and gas exploration, production and transportation, and their related environmental impacts. This suggested change would also be useful internationally, including for the burgeoning exploration and production of unconventional hydrocarbon resources.

Análise da qualidade dos estudos de impacto ambiental no estado do Espírito Santo (2007-2013)

“…Um desempenho inferior nas Áreas 2 e 3, em comparação com as Áreas 1 e 4, também foi reportado em trabalhos similares realizados em contextos diferentes (McGrath & Bond, 1997;Sandham et al, 2008a;Sandham et al, 2008b;Sandham & Pretorius, 2008;Sandham et al, 2013;Mounir, 2015;Anifowose et al, 2016;Kamijo & Huang, 2016).…”

“…Ainda, para minimizar desvios na análise dos últimos 15 EIAs, realizada por um único avaliador, optou-se por adotar o procedimento de reavaliação aleatória (67% dos EIAs), conforme descrito por McGrath & Bond (1997) e utilizado mais recentemente por Anifowose et al (2016), Gwimbi & Nhamo (2016) e Kamijo & Huang (2016). Desses, apenas Anifowose et al (2016) e Gwimbi & Nhamo (2016) indicaram o quantitativo reavaliado, de 32% e 14% dos EIAs, respectivamente.…”

“…Desses, apenas Anifowose et al (2016) e Gwimbi & Nhamo (2016) indicaram o quantitativo reavaliado, de 32% e 14% dos EIAs, respectivamente.…”

“…Contexto estudado Estudos satisfatórios (conceito geral A, B ou C) (Lee & Brown, 1992) Reino Unido 40% (Lee & Dancey, 1993) Irlanda 40% (McGrath & Bond, 1997) Irlanda 45% (Sandham & Pretorius, 2008) África do Sul 86% (Sandham et al, 2008b) África do Sul 100% (Sandham et al, 2008a) África do Sul 85% (Phylip-Jones & Fischer, 2013) Reino Unido e Alemanha 91% para o 1 o período e 80% para o 2 o período (Sandham et al, 2013) África do Sul 90% (Kabir & Momtaz, 2014) Bangladesh 65% (Mounir, 2015) Nigéria 60% (Kamijo & Huang, 2016) Estudos elaborados pela Agência Japonesa de Cooperação Internacional 33% (Gwimbi & Nhamo, 2016) Zimbábue 68% (Anifowose et al, 2016) Nigéria 53 % FONTE: organizado pelos autores.…”

“…(Lee & Brown, 1992;Lee & Dancey, 1993;McGrath & Bond, 1997;Sandham et al, 2008a;Sandham et al, 2008b;Sandham & Pretorius, 2008;Phylip-Jones & Fischer, 2013;Sandham et al, 2013;Kabir & Momtaz, 2014;Mounir, 2015;Anifowose et al, 2016;Gwimbi & Nhamo, 2016;Kamijo & Huang, 2016).…”