Environmental Audits

Phase I & II Audits

Phase I and Phase II Environmental and Safety Assessments are performed routinely to ensure regulatory compliance.  Property trasfer audits are performed for potential investors or property sellers to determine environmental liabities associated with current and past operating practices.

Regulatory Compliance

Environmental and Safety Compliance Programs are customized to best fit client needs.  Both records and field audits are conducted to determine the degree of compliance with current regulations.  Recommendations are prioritized to allow a company with limited resources to undertake an appropriate yet affordable course of action.

Inspections

Field inspections include a review of permits and well files and appraisals of waste handling and disposal practices.

Disposition/Acqusition Audits

A cost-effective alternative to exploration is to acquire producing properties.  Conversely, such properties are often sold when operating costs become too high or to meet other company goals.  Under current state and federal environmental and oilfield regulations, a property owner may be held responsible for previous hazardous materials management or disposal practices on the property and cleaning up that property.  The owner may be liable even when these practices were considered to be the industry standard at the time, B&A conducts disposition and acquisition audits to assess potential environmental liabilities associated with past and current operating practices.  Audits include field inspections, review of permits and well files, and appraisals of waste handling and disposal practices.

Information derived from these audits can be used in the negotiations for the transfer.  An increasingly common practice is to make an acquisition contingent upon the conclusion of a successful environmental audit.

Select Example Project

Environmental and Safety Compliance Audit & UIC Review

(Confidential Client), Oil & Gas Company, Texas

An independent oil and gas company that has the majority of its operations in Texas, Louisiana and the Rocky Mountains retained Buys & Associates, Inc. to conduct compliance audits of their Texas operations. The audits consisted of a field office records' review and inspection of selected properties operated from the field office locations. The audits were conducted at the central Texas and west Texas district offices to determine the degree of compliance with applicable state and federal regulations. In conjunction with the field activities, a review of the operations was also performed at the corporate office.

The audits of the district offices included scrunity of files pertaining to SPCC plans, air permits, spill history and reporting, Underground Injection Control activities, and waste handling procedures.  Inspection of company operated properties for each district was also conducted to assess the on-site compliance with environmental and safety regulations.

The information discovered by the auditing process was used to evaluate the oil company's overall corporate environmental compliance, to correct noted deficiencies, and to organize the company's resources to maintain environmental records effectively.