Peru: New opportunity to submit the Detailed Environmental Plan for the development of hydrocarbon activities

On November 22, 2023, Ministerial Resolution No. 468-2023-MINEM/DM was published, by which the Ministry of Energy and Mines published a draft amendment to the Regulations for Environmental Protection in Hydrocarbon Activities, approved by Supreme Decree No. 039-2014-EM.

The main purpose of the draft amendment is to grant a new deadline for the submission of the Detailed Environmental Plan (Plan Ambiental Detallado or PAD, by its Spanish acronym), a corrective environmental management instrument designed to regularize hydrocarbon activities that have been executed without prior approval of an environmental management instrument.

Among the main aspects of the draft amendment, we find the following:

• A new period of eight months from the date of official publication of the Supreme Decree approving the draft amendment has been established for hydrocarbon activity holders whose activities do not have an environmental management instrument to apply for approval of the PAD.
• Likewise, it has been foreseen that any title holder of hydrocarbon activities that had submitted a communication of adherence to the PAD approval regime, approved by Supreme Decree No. 023-2018-EM, and in such opportunity has not consigned all the components subject to environmental adequacy, may communicate again its adherence to the PAD, within the term described in the previous paragraph.
• The PAD must be submitted by the title holder of hydrocarbon activities within three years from the official publication of the supreme decree approving the draft amendment, provided that the title holder has made the notification of adherence mentioned in the previous point.
• It has been proposed that, in the event that the title holders of hydrocarbon activities do not have an environmental management instrument for the development of their hydrocarbon project and need to obtain the approval of an Abandonment Plan, they may exceptionally request the approval of such plan within a maximum period of one year from the approval of the Supreme Decree that approves the draft amendment.

The draft amendment is currently in the phase of receiving comments and/or contributions from the public for a period of ten working days from the day following its publication, that is, until December 6, 2023. All comments and/or contributions should be sent to the following email address: [email protected]