Holders of offshore exploration and production rights and permits, obtained under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (MPRDA), have been granted a further extension. This is applicable for rights and permits issued before 20 November 2015, to comply with the Financial Provisioning Regulations, 2015.
The compliance date is extended to a date to be published in the Government Gazette, which would be a date after the finalisation of the amendments to the Financial Provisioning Regulations, 2015. Any holder to whom this extension applies must, in the interim comply with the provisions and arrangments regarding financial provisioning approved as part of the right or permit issued in terms of the MPRDA.
The extension is necessary as the proposed amendments to the Financial Provisioning Regulations, 2015, are yet to be finalised.
Calculation methodology
Comments received from stakeholders on the August 2020 version of the proposed amendments identified that the three plan calculation methodology proposed was unnecessarily complicated for low risk operations.
In order to address this concern, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment embarked on a process to identify a simplified methodology to determine the financial provison requirements for operations related to low risk commodities. The methodology has just been finalised and consultation on the methodology and the documents which support the methodology will commence shortly.
This simplified calculation methodology must be finalised before the amendments to the Financial Provisioning Regulaitons, 2015 can be concluded.
Enquiries related to the notice can be directed to: Dr D Fischer at email address dfischer@dffe.gov.za
To access the government notice, click here: National Environmental Management Act (107/1998): Amendment of the transitional arrangements in the Financial Provisioning Regulations, 2015 [G 50059 – GoN 4296]
