API onshore drilling safety and reliability meeting gets under way

June 26, 2013
More than 600 engineers and scientists assembled for meetings to examine and update the American Petroleum Institute’s onshore oil and gas drilling safety and reliability standards.

More than 600 engineers and scientists assembled for meetings to examine and update the American Petroleum Institute’s onshore oil and gas drilling safety and reliability standards. Government regulators and congressional staff members joined them, API President Jack N. Gerard said in remarks on June 25.

“Safety is, and always has been, a top priority at API,” he maintained. “Our standards and practices work because they are developed through engineering and operating experience. The US, state, and local governments don’t adopt them as regulations out of convenience, but because they are proven and reliable.”

Committee members have issued 5 new hydraulic fracturing standards in the last 5 years, and are working on cilica exposure issues, he told reporters following his address. Committees and the 70 API staff members who assist them also are addressing emerging community questions which have emerged as more unconventional US oil and gas resources are developed, relations issues, Gerard said.

“We welcome strong regulation. We resist duplicative, conflicting requirements,” he said. “Our critics are welcome. We will not be content until we reach zero fatalities. In many ways, we’re raising the bar on ourselves.”

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