The Open Group and International Association of Oil & Gas Producers to Collaborate on Industry Standards

San Francisco, California/ London, United Kingdom – October 29, 2020:  The Open Group, the vendor-neutral technology consortium, and the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) today announced a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will foster more Oil and Gas industry collaboration for the development of common information standards.

The Open Group vision is to enable the achievement of business objectives through the development of technology standards, enabling global interoperability and Boundaryless Information Flow™ in a secure, reliable, and timely manner. As part of the process in developing industry standards, The Open Group regularly collaborates with peer organizations that want to be an integral part in developing related or complementary standards and technical specifications.

IOGP is a unique upstream forum in which member organizations share industry knowledge and devise best practices to achieve improvements in health, safety, environment, security, and social responsibility.

Both parties are entering into this agreement to provide subject matter experts with a better understanding of the areas of strategic overlap, as well as the digital use cases that benefit from the distinctive strengths of each organization.

Steve Nunn, President and CEO of The Open Group, said: “The Open Group is proud to partner with the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, aligning our common goals of adding significant value to the Oil and Gas industry through the creation and promotion of technology standards. This milestone example of cross-organization collaboration will lay the foundations for innovation and shape the future of the industry as a whole.”

The Open Group has established several Forums that are relevant for IOGP members, including:

• The Open Group OSDU™ Forum – delivers an Open Source, standards-based, technology- agnostic data platform for the energy industry that stimulates innovation, industrializes data management, and reduces time to market for new solutions
• The Open Group Open Process Automation™ Forum – aims to develop a standards-based, open, secure, and interoperable process control architecture that addresses both technical and business issues for process automation
• The Open Footprint™ Forum – focuses on the development of open and vendor-neutral industry standards to provide consistent and accurate measurement and reporting of environmental footprint data, including water, waste, and land data

IOGP is currently working to develop an Industry Digitalization Roadmap (IDR), which has touchpoints with the strategic direction of the OSDU Forum and the New Energy platform. This partnership will not only increase the relevance and adoption of the OSDU Data Platform by enriching it with IOGP curated standards and technologies, but also facilitate IOGP in delivering the IDR in an Agile manner.

Johan Krebbers, GM Digital Emerging Technologies/VP IT Innovation of Shell said: “With the cooperation of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, we are jointly able to add some advanced new features to the OSDU Data Platform, making it ever stronger as the open energy data platform.”

Gordon Ballard, Executive Director of IOGP, added: “This collaboration will combine the industry and technical standards knowledge of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers with the open source and technology expertise of The Open Group to accelerate the adoption of open standards-based ecosystems for Oil and Gas. Together we can tackle critical industry challenges.”

About The Open Group

The Open Group is a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives through technology standards. Our diverse membership of more than 790 organizations includes customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tool vendors, integrators, academics, and consultants across multiple industries. Further information on The Open Group can be found at www.opengroup.org.

About IOGP

The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) is the voice of the global upstream industry. Oil and gas continue to provide a significant proportion of the world’s energy to meet growing demands for heat, light and transport.

Its Members produce 40% of the world’s oil and gas. They operate in all producing regions: The Americas, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Caspian, Asia and Australia.

IOGP serves industry regulators as a global partner for improving safety, environmental and social performance. Learn more about IOGP at www.iogp.org.

The Open Group Media Contact:

Kate O’Donnell
Hotwire
+44 (0) 7393 465534
UKOpengroup@hotwirepr.com

IOGP Media Contact:

Danny Walsh
IOGP Global Communications and Media Manager
+44 (0) 7734488672
dw@iogp.org

###

Notes to Editor:

Below is a comprehensive list of the objectives both parties are aiming to achieve through this three-year MoU:

1. Providing subject matter experts of IOGP and The Open Group Forums with a better understanding of areas of strategic overlap and identify digital use cases that benefit from each other’s strengths.
   1. Upon finding successful areas of collaboration, parties to the MOU will recommend modes of operation with respect to The Open Group Data Platforms and clearly document benefits The Open Group Data Platforms could generate.
   2. Parties will establish communication channels with the relevant IOGP Committees and The Open Group Forums.
2. Increasing the relevance and adoption of the OSDU Data Platform, enriching services with IOGP curated standards and technologies and facilitating IOGP in delivering their roadmap in an agile fashion.
3. Exploring the use of the OSDU Data Platform to ingest and manage design, documentation and operational data related to subsea facilities and the respective information handover specifications development (CFIHOS).
4. The IOGP Digital and Information Standards Subcommittee (DISC) exploring possibilities with The Open Group on how to define digitalization solutions for topside facilities, in order to cover the entire Oil & Gas supply and value chain.
5. Exploring and learning from the OSDU Forum and OPAF how to cover and include topside facilities, including implementation of CFIHOS and JIP33 specifications.
6. Sharing and aligning relevant information standards between IOGP DISC and The Open Group (OSDU and OPAF) to achieve more Oil & Gas industry alignment and industry support related for common information standards.
7. Exploring collaboration between the OSDU Forum and the IOGP Wells Experts Committee to enable further reduction of well control risks.
8. Collaborating on appropriate terminology, models and systems for describing and managing spatial referencing of geospatial data – including how spatial integrity is maintained during workflows for loading, integration, manipulation, visualization, and transferring of such data.
9. Sharing insights into the new risks introduced by digitalization of the Oil & Gas industry, associated workflows and the changed organizational structures that will accompany it.
10. Sharing relevant standards between OPAF Forum and the IOGP Instrument & Automation Standards subcommittee to better understand their relevant standards in order to prevent duplication.
11. Sharing relevant standards between The Open Footprint™ Forum and the IOGP Environmental Committee to better understand their relevant standards in order to prevent duplication.