Brazilian ANP Publishes Measures to Be Followed by Operators During COVID-19

On April 7, 2020, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (“ANP”) disclosed, on its website, Orders No. 92/2020/SDP and No. 262/2020/NFP, addressing the measures to be followed by operators of oil and natural gas fields during the emergency public health situation caused by COVID-19.

Decisive Order No. 92/2020 of the Development and Production Superintendence (“SDP”) establishes the: (i) suspension of the deadline for submission of reviews of Development Plans and Annual Work, Budget and Production Programs, except if the submission is expressly required by the ANP; (ii) extension of the deadlines for ANP requests and concessionaires' response to the Monthly Production Bulletin to 60 days—the submission of the Monthly Production Bulletin must follow the contractual deadlines, without adjustment; (iii) authorization for postponement of activities provided for in the Annual Work and Budget Program (“PAT”) to be carried out in 2020 up to one year, without the need to review such programs; and (iv) authorization for extraordinary burning of up to 100,000 m³/day of natural gas in small production fields.

Order No. 262/2020 of the Measurement of Oil and Natural Gas Production Inspection Center (“NFP”), in turn, suspends certain deadlines for operational procedures, such as those applicable to: (i) collection of oil samples and natural gas at tax measurement, appropriation and custody transfer points; (ii) calibration of primary elements—oil and natural gas measurement systems; (iii) calibration of secondary elements for temperature and pressure measurement, as well as measurement tapes and thermometers associated with tanks; (iv) inspection of components of the measurement systems encompassed in the Technical Regulation for Measurement of Oil and Natural Gas; (v) verification of flow meters for flare gas; and (vi) tests of wells exclusively located in onshore fields.

These measures are a manner of making certain rules related to production activities more manageable during the emergency public health situation.

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