وباء كورونا كحدث قوة قاهرة في عقود البترول

Abstract EN

The world is currently sweeping the new Corona virus called “COVID-19”, which was considered by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020 as a global pandemic.

In order to confront the outbreak of the epidemic, most countries have imposed precautionary and preventive measures, such as closing borders, ports and airports, travel bans, closing many companies and institutions, stopping education, canceling sports, cultural and religious activities...etc, to find ourselves facing an unprecedented epidemic that exceeds the individual's ability to anticipation or control, with severe effects on economic, industrial and commercial relations.

The impact of the Corona epidemic and the government measures taken to prevent its spread was severe on oil contracts, as many companies found themselves unable to fulfill their contractual obligations as a result of the effects of the Corona epidemic and related government measures, which prompted them to declare a state of force majeure.

Therefore, this study came to determine the extent to which the Corona epidemic qualifies as a force majeure event in petroleum contracts, by researching how these contracts deal with the force majeure clause and its conditions, and considering the obligations imposed by the force majeure situation and its effects on those contracts.

We concluded that considering the Corona epidemic and the government measures generated by it a force majeure event depends on the terms of the contract, and the extent of the impact of the event on the performance of the contract.

implementation of contract.

The formulation of the force majeure clause in many petroleum contracts was advanced and flexible, which might ensure that the Corona epidemic was considered a force majeure event in many contracts.

In the recommendations, we focused on the importance of the accurate formulation of force majeure events, their terms, conditions and effects, and the duty of the parties to document all problems that prevent performance, notices, and steps taken to mitigate the effects of the event.