te year in review

International Association of Oil & Gas Producers

O
GP is unique. It is the upstream oil & gas industrys only truly worldwide organisation. As such, it is our
primary role to help the industry in its mission to meet growing global energy demand over the decades
ahead safely and sustainably. As the earths population increases by two billion between now and 2040, its
people will need 35% more energy much of it for electricity and transport, with particularly dramatic growth in
the non-OECD countries.
Progress in renewables notwithstanding, oil will remain the most important fuel, with natural gas overtaking coal
as the second-most important source of energy. As we have seen from the transformation of the energy scene in
the United States, an increasing percentage of that gas is likely to come from shale.
OGPs members look to the Association to help in the constant renewal of the industrys licence to operate; to
work with international regulators, legislators and other stakeholders to increase their understanding of what
and how the industry does in terms of safety and sustainability. At the same time, OGP enhances the industrys
appreciation of concerns in the societies we serve.
Equally important is the role of the committees, subcommittees and task forces that are the heart of the Association.
Their relentless, fact-based technical work provides the basis for the reports and recommended practices that are
improving the industrys performance and providing the platform for OGPs advocacy efforts.
As the newly-elected Chair of OGPs Management Committee, I am proud of the Associations extensive
achievements in 2012. And as one of my rst responsibilities, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the
people responsible for OGPs continuing success: the employees of member companies and organisations who
provide the sweat equity on which the Association relies; our highly dedicated secretariat in London and Brussels;
and my predecessor as Chair, Brad Corson for his unswerving dedication and inspiring leadership.
Highlights of 2012
Advocacy: maintaining the
industrys licence to operate
E
verything that OGP does is driven by
one thing: maintaining the upstream
industrys licence to operate. That was
the message with which the Chair of the
Management Committee opened the
Associations general meeting in Istanbul
in November 2012. A single incident can
jeopardise existing and future operations
for all, he said, and despite hundreds
of billions of dollars in investment, this
licence is up for renewal every day by
international agencies, regional bodies and
their ofcials, and national governments
and their regulators all of which are
increasingly inuenced by concerns coming
from NGOs and the media.
OGP is working to address such concerns,
he said. As the only global voice for
the upstream sector, it provides the key
messages, facts and data on which
intelligent decisions can be made about the
worlds energy future.
The EU energy mix
In 2012, one of the Associations most
important advocacy issues was the
EU energy mix. To that end, OGP, in
partnership with Europia (representing the
oil rening and marketing industry) invited
European parliamentarians to learn more
about oils vital role in Europes future.
It was very successful and attracted a high
number of MEPs from different political
groups, said Rachel Bonfante, OGPs
Deputy Director EU Affairs. We told the
MEPs that maintaining indigenous oil
production in the EU brings diversity of
supply, signicant tax revenues, balance
of payments, employment, improved
competitiveness, value creation in the
economy, and technology leadership. This
requires certainty, predictability and a
cross-sectoral approach in terms of an EU
regulatory framework.
Emmanuel Haton, BPs Director of EU
Government Affairs, reminded the invited
guests that, in order to ensure that the
considerable remaining potential of
European Economic Area indigenous
production is exploited, we need an
enduringly competitive and stable
regulatory regime.
Then, in November, OGP welcomed
the European Parliaments recognition
of gas from shale as a component part
of the energy mix. The full European
Parliamentary vote on the 21
st
recognised
the important potential role of gas from
shale in Europe and conrmed that there
was no need for an EU-wide moratorium
on gas from shale development. The
assessment reected the view already
provided earlier in the year by the
European Commission.
OGP had pointed out to both the European
Parliament and the Commission that
hydraulic fracturing, one of the techniques
used for extracting gas from shale, is a
thoroughly tested and well-understood
technology.
UN agency observer status conrmed
The Associations role as an ofcial
observer with the UNs International
Maritime Organization (IMO) was
conrmed for a minimum of two years
Gordon Birrell, June 2013
An introduction from the Chair:
at the IMOs bi-annual assembly in
November.
The renewal of OGPs observer status
with IMO was particularly important for
the Association and our industry, said
Technical Director John Campbell. In
almost 20 years, our presence at IMO has
successfully made the distinction between
offshore oil and gas operations and
shipping activities. By doing that, we have
ensured that IMO regulations have been
appropriately directed at the maritime
industry and not at ours.
An expanding role in the Arctic
In January, OGP joined representatives
from academia, government and industry
at the Arctic Frontiers Conference. The
focus was on the global energy outlook
and the role of, and implications for,
both traditional and renewable energy
resources in the High North. As OGP
Vice Chair, Joep Coppes participated in
a session dedicated to energy resources
and industrial development to highlight the
work of OGPs Arctic Co-ordination Task
Force and explained to delegates how the
oil and gas industry can contribute to the
sustainable development of the High North.
Then, at a press conference, OGP
announced the formation of the Arctic Oil
Spill Response Technology Joint Industry
Programme (JIP). Bringing together BP,
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil,
North Caspian Oil Company, Shell, Statoil
and Total, the collaborative research
endeavour aimed to expand industry
knowledge of, and capabilities in, Arctic oil
spill prevention and response.
Speaking to the audience of Norwegian,
French and Italian press delegates JIP
Programme Manager Joe Mullin explained
prevention of oil spills is a priority for
industry, as is the response to any spill that
may occur.
A strong voice in the EU
offshore safety debate
I
n late January, OGP cautioned against
a European Commission proposal to
implement an EU-wide regulation to govern
policy on offshore oil and gas activities.
It would, the Association said, conict
with current national rules and lead to
duplication, confusion and uncertainty
for the industry. While fully supporting
the Commissions objectives of further
improving safety and environmental
performance, these objectives, OGP
argued, could be better achieved through
a properly worded directive.
OGP Executive Director Michael
Engell-Jensen conveyed this message
at an Offshore Regulation Stakeholder
Meeting organised by the European
Commission in Brussels. There, addressing
some 70 representatives from Member
States regulatory bodies, unions, non-
governmental organisations and the
European Institutions, Michael reminded
participants what the proposed Regulation
would jeopardise.
Under highly-effective Member State
regulations, he said, European upstream
operations (90% of which are in the North
Sea) are among the worlds safest, with
the lowest rate of fatalities. Moreover,
he added, safe indigenous production
currently meets more than 33% of Europes
oil and gas demand making a signicant
contribution to EU security of supply,
employment and trade balance.
The debate continued when the OGP EU
Committee organised an Offshore Safety
Breakfast in the European Parliament in
Strasbourg on 12th September. It provided
an opportunity for OGP members to meet
some of the leading gures in the debate.
The following week, Steve Cromar, as
Chair of OGPs Wells Expert Committee,
participated in a panel debate at EU
Commission level. He explained recent
industry achievements and learnings to
improve offshore safety performance
and the signicant progress underway
to improve offshore incident prevention,
intervention and oil spill response
capability.
It is worth noting that, in the end, the EU
agreed that a directive on offshore safety,
rather than a regulation, would be the best
way to proceed.
Building on technical strengths
O
GP began life as an organisation
devoted to collecting and originating
technical data, with emphasis on safety
and the environment. Those strengths
endure and as output in 2012 conrms
continue to grow.
Publication on human factors leads
to international symposium
The Safety Committees Human Factors
Subcommittee, in support of its newly-
published recommended practice, Human
factors in engineering projects, organised
a full day symposium on the subject
in March. It focused on implementing
practical, balanced and cost-effective
approaches to human factors engineering
(HFE) in upstream projects globally.
The report was a key part of Ergonomics
& Human Factors 2012, organised by the
Institute of Ergonomics & Human factors,
in April.
Harnessing space technology
The usefulness of Earth Observation
technology to the oil and gas industry,
in both on and offshore settings, led to
the creation of the Earth Observation
Subcommittee of the Geomatics
Committee. It mission: to promote the
uptake of this technology within OGP and
the broader industry.
Also known as remote sensing, earth
observation uses earth-orbiting satellites or
dedicated survey aircraft to obtain timely
access to information about the status of
the globes surface. New developments
allow the establishment of historic baselines
and also help to minimise risk exposure to
personnel throughout routine monitoring
operations. During an emergency
response, timely access to up-to-date data
crucially allows effective decision-making
by a crisis response team.
Collecting essential industry data
S
afety performance indicators reveal
signicant reduction in fatal accident
rate
The 2011 edition of OGPs Safety and
Health performance indicators showed that
the fatal accident rate was down by 32
per cent in 2011 when compared with the
previous years performance. This was an
Human
performance
People
Environment
Equipment Work
organisation
Work
Fatal accident rate - company and contractors
per 100 million hours worked
0
2
4
6
8
Overall
Company FAR
Contractor FAR
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
Spin-off successes
O
ne of OGPs strengths is the ability to
establish spin-off organisations that
tackle specic tasks and projects on behalf
of the upstream industry. These usually
take the form of joint industry programmes,
known as JIPs.
Making progress in emergency intervention
The Subsea Well Response Project (SWRP),
established as part of OGPs Global
Industry Response recommendations,
announced the signing of contracts for the
construction of internationally-deployable
well capping equipment to enhance the
industrys capability to respond to a subsea
well control incident.
Deployment will involve an agreement with
Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL), ensuring the
availability of the new integrated response
system to the wider industry.
The SWRP project was among the top
ve nalists in the Offshore Northern
Seas (ONS) Innovation Awards 2012.
SWRP had been shortlisted from 56
nominees and was then named as runner
up in the awards. Judges praised SWRP
for collaborating across the industry
to develop international subsea well
intervention equipment.
US ofcials praise Sound &
Marine Life JIP leadership
US Marine Mammal Commission Executive
Director Timothy Regan thanked the Joint
Industry Programme (JIP) on E&P Sound
and Marine Life for its leadership in
addressing research priorities In a letter
dated 8th June 2012, he further noted that
the JIP had contributed signicantly
towards research to understand the sources,
effects and mitigation of underwater
sound and strongly encouraged the JIP to
enter a third phase of collaborative research
efforts.
Sound and Marine Life JIP Chair Paul
Shone of Chevron responded to the letter
by saying to receive such a letter signed
by an Executive Director of a [US] federal
body is a big complement to everyone who
has worked on this project over the past 8
years.
actual reduction from 94 reported fatalities
in 2010 to 65 reported fatalities in 2011.
The number of working hours reported
increased by 1% to a total of 3,456 million
work hours in 2011.
Among operating company members of
OGP, 45 out of 59 contributed data for
compilation in the report. Submissions
covered operations in 98 countries and
all but one of the participating companies
included contractor data.
Analysis of the fatal incident descriptions
for 2011 revealed that 80 per cent of the
fatal incidents reported are covered by
the OGP Life-Saving Rules, OGP Report
No. 459. If the OGP Life-Saving rules
had been followed, some of the reported
fatalities may have been prevented,
said OGP Executive Director Michael
Engell-Jensen.
Environmental performance indicators
report increases transparency
For the past 13 years, OGPs Environment
Committee has been collecting data from
member companies and reporting on
an annual basis. The aim was to enable
benchmarking and increase transparency
in the upstream oil and gas industry.
The 2012 edition of OGPs Environmental
Performance Indicators, covering the year
2011, collated information on the upstream
activities of 41 OGP member companies
working in 75 countries. Five of these
companies were reporting for the rst time.
The data was aggregated at both global
and regional levels and were expressed
within 6 environmental indictor categories.
The report showed that, for every thousand
tonnes of hydrocarbon production,
participating companies reported emissions
of 133 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 1.25
tonnes of methane equating to 159 tonnes
of greenhouse gas, 0.5 tonnes of non-
methane volatile organic compounds , 0.2
tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 0.4 tonnes of
nitrogen oxide. These were broadly similar
with 2010 gures.
Safety Forum lauds OGPs Well
Control Incidents Database
Participants in a Ministerial Forum on
Offshore Safety welcomed and supported
the creation of a global database of well
control incidents by OGP designed to help
members improve well integrity, safety and
environmental protection. The gathering,
in Trondheim, Norway, took place on 27
June. It was convened by Ola Borten Moe,
Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and
Energy and Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary
of the Interior, included senior government
ofcials from nine oil-producing nations.
Within a month of that event, OGP
published and distributed its rst Well
Control Safety Alert to members.
Getting our messages across
O
ne of OGPs top priorities in 2012 was
to improve communications; ensuring
that internal and external stakeholders
alike would have a better grasp of the
Associations work on behalf of the global
upstream industry.
To that end, the year began with a re-
launch of OGPs public website: www.ogp.
org.uk Its aim: to raise OGPs prole while
explaining the Associations important
industry role and describing specic
activities to a wide range of audiences,
including some not necessarily familiar
with the work of OGP committees. Visitors
to the new site include regulators and
other government ofcials from around the
world, academics, students, contractors,
potential new members and of course
employees of existing member companies
and organisations.
As with every effective website, work on
improving, upgrading and expanding the
scope of OGPs main communications
channel is on-going.
A key player in those efforts is the
Communications Committee, which
was established in October 2012, as
an upgrade from its previous task force
status. The chair, Andrew Hogg of Total,
was clear on how better communications
could help OPG. Increasingly he
said, OGP is being asked to act as an
advocacy organisation and represent
the industry at an international level. This
makes it necessary to take the good work
being done by committees and explain
it in a way that engages stakeholders.
The Communications Committee
was established to help improve the
effectiveness of that engagement.
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www.ogp.org.uk
Guidance notes on subcontractor
management in geophysical operations
(Wells)
Standards Bulletin 13 (Standards)
Country evacuation planning guidelines
(Security)
Oxy-arc underwater cutting
Recommended Practice (Safety)
Managing oil & gas activities in coastal
areas - an awareness brieng (Environment)
Cognitive issues associated with process
safety & environmental incidents (Safety)
Guidelines for the use of the Seabed
Survey Data Model (Geomatics)
Safety performance indicators - 2011
data (Safety)
Offshore environmental monitoring for the
oil & gas industry (Environment)
Fitness to work (Health)
Reports
In 2012, OGP produced a total of 18
reports (all available to download from
www.ogp.org.uk).
Standards & guidelines for drilling, well
constructins & well operations (Wells)
Decommissioning of offshore Concrete
Gravity-Based Structures (CGBS) in the
OSPAR Maritime Area/other global
regions (Decomissioning)
P-Formats for the exchange of
positioning data (Geomatics)
Environmental performance indicators -
2011 data (Environment)
Health performance indicators - 2011
data (Health)
Recommendations for enhancements
to well control training, examination &
certication (Wells)
Value of Standards (Standards)
Catalogue of international standards used
in the oil & gas industry (Standards)
Events
In 2012 OGP staged or actively
participated in a number of international
events. These included:
IP Week in London
IADC World Drilling Conference &
Exhibition, Barcelona
Ministerial Forum on Offshore Energy
Safety, Trondheim, Norway
SPE/APPEA HSSE Conference, Perth,
Australia
Gas Regulatory Forum, Madrid
Continuing expansion
A
n organisation such as OGP is only
as strong as its membership. In 2012,
seven companies joined the Association:
E.ON Ruhrgas, Abu Dhabi National
Energy Company, better known as TAQA,
Afren Plc, Sasol Petroleum International
(SPI), Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi
Aramco), Canadian Natural Resources
International (CNRI) and Noble Energy,
Inc. As of year-end, total membership had
grown to 79.
New ways of working; new people
C
hairs of OGPs standing committees
met for a two-part, full-day session
in the Associations Brussels ofce in
February. The aim, according to Michael
Engell-Jensen, was to break down barriers
and encourage people to think creatively
about OGP and what we can do to make
the Association more effective. The meeting
with the Management Committee and
the chairs sessions among themselves did
exactly that.
Among the conclusions:
OGPs budget should be on a
scale with the Associations primary
objectives. If it isnt, there is the option
and precedent to ask for an increase
in fees.
Publications remain at the heart of
OGPs work and should be released
on a timely basis using the services of
external editors as required.
There should be greater connectivity
between member companies, the
Management Committee and the
secretariat to ensure that committee
chairs and members gain the
recognition they deserve within the
Association, their companies and the
wider industry.
OGP should strive to gain a broader
geographic, ethnic and gender base
to represent its global constituency.
Closer links with national oil industry
associations could help achieve this.
Member representatives and committee
chairs should work to greater
alignment with OGP activities within
their companies and also encourage
implementation of Association reports
and recommended practices.
There should be more rigour in dening
and implementing the role of MC
committee sponsors.
OGPs general meetings should hold
dedicated workshops and other events
to raise the level of participation.
Implementation of these recommendations
continues.
Nine welcomes and an anniversary
A new Committee Chair stepped into
position at the Wells Expert Committees
Dallas meeting on 28th of November,
2012. Richard Dyve Jones, Statoil,
replaced Steve Cromar who became
Vice-Chair. Maintaining a good working
relationship with the regulating authorities
will continue to be a priority for this
committee and I believe we are well
positioned to meet their expectations, he
said.
The year also saw eight new members
of the secretariat. In the Brussels ofce,
OGP welcomed Bernard Vanheule, EU
Affairs Manager; Kamila Piotrowska,
EU Affairs Ofcer; Caterina De Matteis,
Administrative Assistant and Maria Soa
Villanueva, intern. The London ofce grew
with the appointment of Lucyna Kryla-
Straszewka, Metocean and Geomatics
Committees Manager; Liz Langstaff,
Graphic Designer; Danny Walsh, Assistant
Communications Manager (since promoted
to full manager status) and Natalia Staina,
Safety Co-ordinator.
In Brussels, Administrator Christine Glorieux
celebrated 20 years with OGP, making her
one of the longest-serving members of the
Secretariat.