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Issues Of Legal Regulation Of Ensuring Industrial Safety Of Mining Companies In The Oil And Gas Complex
 
PIIS231243500021950-3-1
DOI10.18572/2410-4396-2018-1-76-81
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Vladislav G. Tubdenov 
Affiliation: Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL)
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Journal nameEnergy law forum
EditionIssue 1
Pages76-81
Abstract

The problems of legal regulation of industrial safety in the oil and gas complex are among the most topical. Upon development of the fields containing hydrocarbon raw materials, the producing companies use sophisticated advanced technologies, and hydrocarbon raw materials are explored in places being more and more difficult to access. At the same time, there are always risks of occurrence of emergencies and accidents, which can lead to death of people, damage to their health, and property losses. Relations that arise upon ensuring industrial safety of the producing companies in the oil and gas complex are public relations, which are also the subject matter of the energy law. The state influences these relations by issuing normative legal acts, exerting state control, and performing regulatory and supervisory activities. Requirements to the producing companies relating to ensuring laws in the sphere of industrial safety extend to the entire “life cycle” of the relevant hazardous production facilities including design, construction, reconstruction, operation, decommissioning, and emergency situations. These requirements include the need to identify the producing facility according to the hazard class, to obtain a declaration of safe industrial practices, and to submit the collected data to Rostekhnadzor to register the facility in the register of hazardous production facilities.

Keywordsenergy law, legal regulation of industrial safety, hazardous production facility, producing companies of the oil and gas complex
Received06.02.2018
Publication date30.03.2018
Number of characters17924
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1 The issues of legal regulation of public law relations in the sphere of industrial safety involving oil and gas companies rightly become the subject of scientific research. [1]
2 As justly noted by A.A. Ustinov, amendment of the laws in the sphere of industrial safety, adoption of the required normative legal acts and exclusion of provisions that contradict the acts having the supreme legal force are required to create a reliable and transparent mechanism for ensuring safe operation of the hazardous production facilities including those in the oil industry. [2]
3 In order to consider the problems of ensuring industrial safety, it is necessary to analyze principal normative legal acts governing legal relations in the specified sphere. Laws in the sphere of ensuring industrial safety are actively developing; amendments and supplements are introduced into them with due account for development of technologies and equipment, and emerging risks. The analysis of the current laws testifies to the desire of the legislator to most fully and properly regulate relations with regard to industrial safety at all levels of normative legal acts.
4 First of all, it should be noted that the Russian Federation is a party to Convention No. 174 of the International Labor Organization “On Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents” concluded in Geneva in 1993 and ratified by Russia in 2011. This Convention contains definitions of such concepts as “major accident”, “emergency situation”, “hazardous facility”, and “hazardous substance”. The Convention establishes the basic mechanisms of interaction between businesses and competent (state) authorities. It should be noted that the principal provisions of the above convention are reflected in the federal laws of the Russian Federation on industrial safety.
5 The main normative legal act governing relations under consideration is the Federal Law “On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities”. The law is one of the sources of energy law and it refers to federal laws governing certain relations in the fuel and energy sector, regardless of the specific industry (electric power industry, oil industry, gas industry).
6 While analyzing the above Federal Law, it should be noted that over the past few years, it has been significantly amended. In particular, it refers to introduction of division of all hazardous production facilities as per hazard classes with relevant legal consequences and to the reform of the institution of industrial safety expert review. These innovations are aimed at improving efficiency of state regulation of the relations under consideration.
7 Article 2 of the Federal Law defines the HPF with reference to Annex 1 to the law.
8 Being governed by Annex 1 to the law, it is worth noting that in the oil and gas production complex, many facilities are classified as the HPF for several reasons: drilling site, well stock, oil preparation and collection point, fixed (offshore) platform, rig site, underground gas storage, etc.
9 Let us now dwell on the division of the HPFs as per the hazard class and the significance of such a division for the oil and gas complex facilities. According to paragraph 3, Article 2 of the Federal Law “On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities”, the hazardous production facilities (HPF) are divided into the following hazard classes:
10 HPF of extremely high hazard — hazard class I;
11 HPF of high hazard — hazard class II; HPF of medium hazard — hazard class III; HPF of low hazard — hazard class IV.
12 Various facilities of the oil and gas complex may have this or that hazard class for various reasons. So, the HPF will be classified as such on the basis of the presence of hazardous substances in quantities specified in Tables 1 and 2 of Appendix 2 to the Federal Law. For example, the HPFs containing 2,000 tons or more of flammable gases will be classified as the facilities of hazard class I.
13 The meaning of the HPF classification lies in various requirements imposed on the owners of these facilities. For example, at the HPFs of hazard classes I and II with an indicia of mining, the organization operating the HPF shall create auxiliary mine rescue crews. Moreover, the organizations operating the HPFs of hazard classes I and II are obliged to create industrial safety management systems and to ensure their functioning. It is established that declarations of safe industrial practices are mandatory for the HPFs of hazard classes I and II where operations are performed.
14 Moreover, the provision of paragraph 5.1, Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities” is important; according to it, the interval of planned inspections of the entities operating the HPFs is established: for the HPFs of hazard classes I or II, no oftener than once per year; for hazard class III, no oftener than once per three years; and for the HPFs of hazard class IV, no inspections are performed.
15 Thus, it should be noted that the classification of the hazardous production facilities (including those in the oil and gas complex) established by the legislator allows for flexible state regulation of relations in the sphere of industrial safety and adequate response to the level of risks that arise out of the HPF of a particular hazard class.

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