Revocation of a 1973 Oil and Gas Water-Pollution Rule: PERMENESDM 8/2026

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has revoked a mining-era regulation on water pollution in offshore oil and gas work through Peraturan Menteri ESDM Nomor 8 Tahun 2026, the Ministerial Regulation of Energy and Mineral Resources No. 8 of 2026. The measure revokes Peraturan Menteri Pertambangan Nomor 04/P/M/Pertamb/1973, the 1973 Mining Minister Regulation on the Prevention and Mitigation of Water Pollution in Oil and Gas Exploration and Exploitation Activities. The revoking regulation was enacted in Jakarta on 10 June 2026, promulgated on 18 June 2026, and recorded in State Gazette 2026 No. 398. It carries no substantive rules of its own beyond ending the force of the older instrument.

Issue

The revoked instrument dated from 1973, when the sector was governed by the Mining Ministry and by a regulatory framework that predates Indonesia's modern statutes on the environment and on oil and gas. That older rule set out prevention and mitigation measures against water pollution (pencemaran perairan) arising from the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas. Over the intervening decades the subject matter has been absorbed into newer legislation and technical standards, leaving the 1973 rule in place as an outdated overlay. PERMENESDM 8/2026 removes it from the body of applicable law.

Key Provisions

The regulation is short and operates by revocation. Pasal 1 states that the 1973 Mining Minister Regulation on the Prevention and Mitigation of Water Pollution in Oil and Gas Exploration and Exploitation Activities is revoked and declared no longer in force. Pasal 2 states that the regulation takes effect on the date of its promulgation and directs its placement in the State Gazette so that it is publicly known. There are no transitional clauses, no substitute standards set within the text, and no saving provisions carrying forward parts of the old rule; the instrument does one thing, which is to end the legal force of the 1973 regulation. This drafting approach is standard for a repeal, where the operative content is the withdrawal itself rather than any new rule.

Because the measure is a clean revocation rather than a replacement, the water-pollution controls that the 1973 rule once carried are now left to the current framework. Environmental protection in extractive activities is governed by Indonesia's environmental law and its implementing regulations, including the supervision-and-sanction rules described in the environmental supervision and sanctions framework and the graduated penalties set out in the five-step environmental sanction ladder. Licensing and technical requirements for the sector sit under the risk-based system for the energy and mineral field, including the risk-based business licensing standards for energy and mining.

Regulatory Context

Revoking an obsolete rule serves legal certainty. When a decades-old instrument remains formally in force while its subject matter has migrated to newer statutes and standards, businesses and regulators face overlapping or contradictory references. Removing the 1973 regulation narrows the field of applicable rules to the current environmental and oil-and-gas frameworks and closes a source of ambiguity for operators in exploration and exploitation activities. The action forms part of the wider housekeeping of the ministry's regulatory stock, in which rules that no longer match the present legal structure are formally withdrawn.

The revocation does not lower environmental obligations in the sector; it removes a superseded rule while the substantive controls remain with the current environmental protection regime and the sector's licensing standards. The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources signed the regulation, and the Ministry of Law recorded its promulgation in the State Gazette. PERMENESDM 8/2026 took effect on 18 June 2026.

Read the full regulation in the CRPG Law Database.

Methodology: This memo summarises the official regulation text and is not legal advice; report corrections to contact@crpg.info.

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