Library / Page 1 of 67 MIDSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM PETROLEUM SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS, 2025
Page 1 of 67 MIDSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM PETROLEUM SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS, 2025

Page 58 of 67
Page 58 of 67 
 
“Environment” means -  
(a) land, water, air, including all layers of the atmosphere, 
(b) natural and physical resources, 
(c) ecosystems and their constituent parts, including people and communities, 
(d) the qualities and characteristics of locations, places and areas, and 
(e) the heritage value of places, 
and includes the social, economic and cultural features of the matters mentioned in (a) 
— (e); 
“Environmental issues” means any environmental problem such as pollution, damage to 
lives and property, grievances caused to the community, caused by operations of a 
licensee or permit holder in the midstream and downstream petroleum industry; 
“Environmental effect” means any change to the environment, whether adverse or 
beneficial, that wholly or partly results from a petroleum activity; 
“Environmental remediation” means the act of removing or reduction of contaminants from 
environmental components to prevent damage or loss; 
“Environmental risk” means the chance of something happening that will have an adverse 
environmental effect, measured in terms of the environmental consequences and the 
likelihood of those particular consequences occurring; 
“Emergency Response Plan” means an organised and predetermined course of action to 
be pursued in the event of an emergency, such as spill or leakage of oil, gas, chemicals 
or hazardous substances, fire, man overboard, loss of containment, natural disaster, 
injury, piracy, security breach, and this orderly arrangement of events to effectively 
manage the incident shall be compiled in a document by a licensee or permit holder; 
“Exogenous microbes” means micro-organisms that are not indigenous to the Nigerian 
environment and may be contained in chemicals or products intended for use in in the 
midstream and downstream petroleum industry for remediation of impacted sites; 
“Facility” means a factory, plant, installations, structure, utilities, pipelines, processing 
plants, petroleum products tank farms or other facilities, for production, manufacturing, 
transportation, distribution and storage of petroleum, petroleum liquids, natural gas, 
petrochemicals, industrial chemicals, precursors, and other derivatives from crude oil or 
natural gas;