The American Petroleum Institute (API) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), Azerbaijan’s national oil company, to collaborate on industry standards with the goal of enhancing safety, environmental protection and sustainability across the industry.

“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 (GIS) Senior Vice President Debra Phillips said. “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.”

The primary purpose of this MOU is to provide a platform to enhance cooperation and collaboration between API and SOCAR on a number of fronts, including:

• Implementation of API standards and best practices 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.

• Capacity building and certifying SOCAR business units to API Quality Management Systems.

API standards are developed under an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited process, ensuring that the API standards are not only technically rigorous, but also are developed using consensus, due process and balance across stakeholder interests. API’s ANSI accreditation also facilitates acceptance of API standards by state, federal and increasingly international regulators.

API is a non-profit organization based in the United States that operates in all segments of the oil and natural gas industry around the world. API was founded in 1919 as a standards development organization and has more than 700 standards in place to provide improvements in operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability.

SOCAR is an integrated national natural gas and oil company established under the laws of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The company conducts various activities across all segments of the industry, including upstream, midstream and downstream segments, and operates in both domestic and international markets.

To learn more about API, please visit API.org.