The Petroleum Act doesn't make senseSchedule 1 of the Petroleum Act states:
10. The term of an oil mining lease shall not exceed twenty years, but may be renewed in accordance with this Act.
Yet two paragraphs later it states:
12. (1) Ten years after the grant of an oil mining lease, one half of the area of the lease shall be relinquished.
If an OML is granted for 20 years, which paragraph 10 clearly allows, how can paragraph 12(1) come into effect after only 10 years without violating the grant of the OML? Does this mean that every 10 years the area of the OML gets halved? Who decides which half?
There must be more to this than what's in the Petroluem Act itself because it make no sense. I find it hard to believe the Shell lawyers didn't have this covered when they originally applied for the OML.