ME-092 — Australia’s Mirror Committee for the Oil and Gas Industry

The World Economic Forum has identified that the Oil & Gas industry must lead the process of its own transformation by innovation and multi-stakeholder collaboration. The Capital Project Complexity (CPC) initiative is an industry-wide, non-competitive collaboration on standardisation and use of procurement specifications.

Australia is now a major contributor to this collaboration, which has bought together all the major oil and gas operators through the International Association of Oil & Gas Produces (IOGP) network and the standardisation bodies including ISO (International), API (USA), CEN (Europe), GSO (Gulf Region), SAC (China), SA (Australia) and many more. The focus is on developing common international standards through an IOGP Standards-ISO/TC67 link and standardised equipment specifications linking to these standards through IOGP-JIP33.

Australia contributes via Standards Australia’s mirror committee ME-092, which is now significantly established with direct involvement in the ISO/TC67 nine subcommittee areas and thirteen working groups covering 261 current and developing standards.

NERA and industry partners are supporting ME-092 by leading the management committee and facilitating workshops with industry and regulators to bring together Australia’s experts to achieve consistent application of standards to be applied to Australian oil and gas activities.

With the Australian experts now ensuring ISO Standards will incorporate Australian industry expertise, knowledge and regulatory requirements where possible the future revisions will enable them to be adopted as the next revision of the Australian Standard.

ME-092 has made significant progress with adopting the ISO standards as Australian standards with the latest list of adopted standards available here with a plan to adopt at least 20 more each year.

This industry-wide collaboration will ensure future project costs are optimised and safety enhanced through use of the global industry knowledge while also reducing the need to write local standards.

Aligning ME-092 with TC 67

ISO / TC-67's scope is the standardisation of the materials, equipment and offshore structures used in the drilling, production, transport by pipelines and processing of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons within the petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries.

ME-092 mirrors this scope and sub-committees of TC-67, with each of the groups having its own Australian Focal point detailed in the graphic below.

Background

ME-092 was established in 2017 by Standards Australia following a proposal from NERA, with the support of the Australian oil and gas industry.

The foremost objectives of NERA's proposal were to support improved productivity, facilitate global trade and deliver significant cost savings and efficiencies for the oil and gas operators and their supply chains, whilst ensuring the highest standards for safety and environmental performance.

How to get involved

ME-092 has bought together the extensive and expert local capabilities that Australia possesses to support the Oil and Gas and future industries. This experience is critical to making ME-092 a success and achieving the objectives of the global standardisation initiative.

ME-092 have a management committee that meets quarterly that is used to develop ME-092's governance and structure. ME-092 is looking to ensure it includes full representation of the industry and is always looking for new members to join the Management committee or the sub-committee and working groups that cover all disciplines required for the O&G industry.

Please contact the Deputy Chair Matt Keys or the Project Manager Tristan Taylor if you would like to get involved.