API Signs MOU with Azerbaijan Oil Company

The American Petroleum Institute (API) has revealed that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

The primary purpose of the MOU is to provide a platform to enhance cooperation and collaboration between the organizations “on a number of fronts”, according to the API. These include the implementation of API standards across all industry segments and operations in Azerbaijan, participation in API’s Process Safety Site Assessment Program (PSSAP) and Pipeline Safety Management System (SMS) Third Party Assessment Program and capacity building and certifying SOCAR business units to API quality management systems.

“We welcome the signing of today’s MOU with SOCAR, bringing together our two organizations to develop standards in pursuit of our shared goals of safety and environmental protection,” API Global Industry Services Senior Vice President Debra Phillips said in an organization statement.

“Today’s signing marks the first MOU between API and SOCAR, playing a key role in connecting two major natural gas and oil markets to advance industry performance globally,” Phillips added in the statement.

In August last year, the API signed an MOU with the Brazilian technological, certification and standardization group ABENDI to collaborate on industry standardization. In April 2020, it signed an MOU with the Regional Association of Oil, Gas and Biofuels Sector Companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARPEL), to deepen ties with the Latin American and Caribbean region, and in January 2020, it signed an MOU with the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers and the Asociación Mexicana de Empresas de Hidrocarburos (AMEXHI). The latter agreement was said to formalize the groups’ mutual cooperation to strengthen their working relationship and joint efforts to help advance operational performance across North America operations. 

The API represents all segments of America’s natural gas and oil industry, according to its website, which highlights that the sector supports more than ten million U.S. jobs. The API has 600 members which are said to produce, process and distribute the majority of the nation’s energy. API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization and has developed more than 700 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability, its website notes.

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