Evaluation of Law and Practice on Environmental Protection During Exploration and Production of Oil and Gas in Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has in the recent years witnessed an increase of activities in the petroleum industry especially in North-Western parts of the country. While the discoveries, mainly done in 2012, came with raised hopes for revitalized economic growth, it is a well-established fact, and learning from other jurisdictions that made early discoveries, that these discoveries often come with serious environmental costs. Robust and effective legal and institutional framework on oil and gas is needed and expected to mitigate the adverse environmental effects by ensuring that the activities and resultant products including waste are well disposed and there is minimal or no pollution to the environmental and its resources. This research paper was informed by the realization that even though Kenya recently made oil and gas discoveries and has even embarked on the commercial exploitation of these resources, there has been little or no progress in putting in place stringent environmental measures in terms of policy, legal and institutional framework geared towards protecting the environment. This is even though in the general petroleum value chain (upstream, mid-stream and downstream), Kenya has experienced its fair share of various challenges that have adversely impacted the environment and people. The research paper was mainly done through desk research and involved the analysis of the existing literature on the topic, review of the policy and legal documents as well as carrying out a comparative study on Kenya and other African states that have experienced similar challenges, with the main focus being Nigeria and partly Uganda. The paper also highlights some of the practical challenges and disasters that have affected the environment and some communities as far as the petroleum industry operations in the country are concerned. This paper established that even though there have been notable efforts in putting in place frameworks to effectively govern the industry, these efforts have not satisfactorily been extended to combating the environmental degradation and pollution challenges. There are yet to be put in place specific environmental legal instruments, unlike in Nigeria, that deal with the specialized environmental challenges germane to the oil and gas sector.

Instead, Kenya still relies on the general environmental laws, guidelines and standards, which this research concluded as not being effective. The paper therefore offers some recommendations on how the country can ably tackle environmental challenges arising from the petroleum industry through specific legal instruments that can effectively address the challenges posed to the environment.