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Americas – fruitful collaboration continues  

In a year of unprecedented challenges, 2020 was also a year of enhanced collaboration across the global oil and gas industry, with global associations working more closely together than ever before. This was especially true with regards to IOGP’s endeavours in the Americas. Building on the formalization of the collaboration with the American Petroleum Institute (API) in 2019, in 2020 IOGP and API signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Asociación Mexicana de Empresas de Hidrocarburos (AMEXHI) paving the way to strengthen their working relationship and jointly help advance operational performance across North American operations.

“We all share the same agenda.,” says Wafik Beydoun, IOGP Director Americas. “We want to help boost the operational performance and the safety record of the oil and gas industry in the region, and joining efforts with AMEXHI is the best way to achieve that in Mexico.”

“We were eager to sign this agreement to further global energy cooperation, in particular on safety and sustainability issues in the region. Joining with AMEXHI and IOGP to share good practices, standards, and work together to advance free and fair trade enhances our industry’s ability to deliver affordable, reliable energy to more communities,” said API Segment Standards and Services Vice President Alexa Burr.

The ink on the MoU had barely dried before the three associations turned ideas into tangible action – working together in data access, COVID-19 response, mental health, communications, and others.

Since the MoU’s execution, a notable achievement was the establishment of a Subsea Source Control Working Group, which aims to create a consistent approach to develop an effective and efficient oil spill response regime. The working group seeks to share best practices on offshore safety and emergency response, including developing robust frameworks which stakeholders in Mexico, including response-critical authorities, can utilize to help address any offshore safety or environmental event effectively and efficiently.

“Last year, AMEXHI endorsed the Sustainability Reporting Guidance for the oil and gas industry (link to report) published by IPIECA, IOGP, and API. We look forward to an enhanced collaboration that would benefit the entire oil and gas ecosystem in Mexico”, says Merlin Cochran, AMEXHI General Director. “As 2021 starts, we still need to keep our guard up, as COVID-19 still needs to be dealt with carefully, and, as an industry, we all need to work together to share best practices, and learn as the situation progresses.”

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