© DEC 2023 | IRE Journals | Volume 7 Issue 6 | ISSN: 2456-8880 IRE 1705296 ICONIC RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING JOURNALS 253 Traversing the Environmental Regulation of the Nigerian Petroleum Industry and Environment from FEPA to the Petroleum Industry Act AYODELE MOROCCO-CLARKE Faculty of Law, Nile University of Nigeria Abstract- Since the discovery of oil in the late 1950s in Nigeria, the country has relied on the petroleum industry for most of its earnings. Consequently, a raft of legislation has been put in place to regulate the industry and these regulatory instruments have run the gamut from laws enacted to regulate the exploration and production activities of oil companies, right down to laws passed to protect the environment. This work traverses the major laws, regulators and instruments which shoulder the responsibility of overseeing the activities of the petroleum industry in Nigeria and protecting the environment from those activities. The regulation of the Nigerian petroleum industry over the past decades has come with lots of difficulty, shortcomings and conflicts. This work analyses the regulatory interface between various laws and regulatory bodies and culminates in recommendations to better protect the environment as well as the health and well-being of people residing in close proximity of oil operations. Indexed Terms- Nigeria, Environmental Protection, Petroleum Industry, Regulation, FEPA, Oil & Gas, Petroleum Industry Act. I. INTRODUCTION Nigeria first discovered oil in commercial quantity in 1956. This discovery was made in Oloibiri in modern day Bayelsa State. 1 Due to its impact and relevanceglobally, oil has been referred to as ―a fundamental building block of our modern world.‖ 2 The dominance of oil is one which has spannedover ―…a century in which every facet of our civilization has been transformed by the modern and mesmerizing alchemy of petroleum.‖ 3 With over 37 billion barrels of proven reserves of oil 4 and 209 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of proven gas reserves, 5 Nigeria‘s guards the oil industry due to the income it generates. The revenue derived from the petroleum industry in Nigeria constitutes the largest source of revenue for the country. 6 Between 1960 and 2000, oil worth more than Three Hundred Billion Dollars was extracted from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria 7 and earned $196 billion from oil and gas exports in the four years from 2007 to 2010. 8 In a bid to ensure standards are set and there is some oversight with regards to the petroleum industry, Nigeria put in place numerous instruments and bodies, and these have been the mechanisms that regulate the industry. However, despite the indisputable financial advantages that have accrued to Nigeria from its petroleum industry, the exploration and production activities involved in the extraction and transportation of crude oil have resulted in widespread ecological and environmental devastation in the country, particularly the Niger- Delta region. For numerous years, there have been thousands of incidents involving the spillage of oil into the environment in Nigeria. 9 There are reports that show that in a 12 year period, 10 there were over one thousand five hundred incidents of oil spills documented in Nigeria. 11 Furthermore, a report made by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment, the Nigeria Conservation Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund UK and International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) states that there has been at least a quantity of oil equivalent to between nine and thirteen million barrels (1.5 million tons) released into the Niger- Delta eco-system. This amount of oil released is the equivalent of fifty Exxon Valdez spills (or around one Exxon Valdez spill per year). 12 As recently as the 11 th of June 2023, a new oil spill was discovered