But did you know that oil and natural gas also help generate the electricity that powers our daily lives? Or that crude oil supplies the building blocks for everything from dent-resistant car fenders to soft drink bottles to camping equipment?

Explore this section to learn more about oil and natural gas, how they are produced and how they become the products you count on. You’ll also find useful tips on how to conserve energy and use oil and natural gas products in ways that protect you, your family and our environment. 

Certificate

API
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry.
Who We Are
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. Our more than 400 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.

Although our focus is primarily domestic, in recent years our work has expanded to include a growing international dimension, and today API is recognized around the world for its broad range of programs:

Advocacy
We speak for the oil and natural gas industry to the public, Congress and the Executive Branch, state governments and the media. We negotiate with regulatory agencies, represent the industry in legal proceedings, participate in coalitions and work in partnership with other associations to achieve our members’ public policy goals.

Research and Statistics
API conducts or sponsors research ranging from economic analyses to toxicological testing. And we collect, maintain and publish statistics and data on all aspects of U.S. industry operations, including supply and demand for various products, imports and exports, drilling activities and costs, and well completions. This data provides timely indicators of industry trends. API’s Weekly Statistical Bulletin is the most recognized publication, widely reported by the media.

Standards
For more than 75 years, API has led the development of petroleum and petrochemical equipment and operating standards. These represent the industry’s collective wisdom on everything from drill bits to environmental protection and embrace proven, sound engineering and operating practices and safe, interchangeable equipment and materials. API maintains more than 500 standards and recommended practices. Many have been incorporated into state and federal regulations; and increasingly, they’re also being adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, a global federation of more than 100 standards groups.

Certification
Each day, the oil and natural gas industry depends on equipment to produce, refine and distribute its products. The equipment used is some of the most technologically advanced available in the search for oil and gas and allows the industry to operate in an environmentally safe manner. Designed for manufacturers of production, drilling, and refinery equipment, the API Monogram Program verifies that manufacturers are operating in compliance with industry standards. API also provides quality, environmental, and occupational health and safety management systems certification through APIQR. This service is accredited by the ANAB (ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board) for ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Let APIQR’s industry expertise certify your organization to API Spec Q1, ISO/TS 29001 and OHS 18001.

API also certifies inspectors of industry equipment through our Individual Certification Programs, designed to recognize working professionals who are knowledgeable of industry inspection codes and are performing their jobs in accordance with those codes. Through our Witnessing Programs, API provides knowledgeable and experienced witnesses to observe critical material and equipment testing and verification. API’s Training Provider Certification Program provides third-party certification for a variety of oil and gas industry training courses, further ensuring that any training provided meets industry needs.

In helping to improve industry safety, API has a way for service station owners to make sure their contractors have been trained to industry safety standards. API WorkSafe™ is a service station contractor safety qualification program that identifies personnel who have received training for and passed on-line standardized exams covering the latest service station industry safety practices.

For consumers, API provides the API’s Engine Oil Licensing and Certification System (EOLCS). It is a voluntary licensing and certification program that authorizes engine oil marketers who meet specified requirements to use the API Engine Oil Quality Marks. These emblems go directly on each container of oil that retains the certification for and is there to help consumers identify quality engine oils for their gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

Education
API organizes seminars, workshops, conferences and symposia on public policy issues. Through API University, we provide training materials to help people in the oil and natural gas business meet regulatory requirements and industry standards. To prepare the next generation of Americans to make informed decisions or pursue careers in our industry, we work with the National Science Teachers Association and other educational groups to impart scientific literacy and develop critical thinking skills in the classroom. Resources developed specifically for teachers and students include Energy & Society, a multi-disciplinary K-8 curriculum program, and www.classroom-energy.org, informative and interactive educational resources in one easy-to-use location.

American Petroleum Institute

American Petroleum Institute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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American Petroleum Institute

American Petroleum Institute logo
Headquarters Washington, DC
Membership 400 companies in petroleum industry
President Jack Gerard[1]
Website
http://www.api.org/
The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent about 400 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry.
The association’s chief functions on behalf of the industry include advocacy and negotiation with governmental, legal, and regulatory agencies; research into economic, toxicological, and environmental effects; establishment and certification of industry standards; and education outreach.[2] API both funds and conducts research related to many aspects of the petroleum industry.[2]
It has many front groups, including the NH Energy Forum that in August 2011 hosted a New Hampshire event for Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry [3][4]
Contents [hide]
1 Standards and certification
2 Educator intervention
3 Public advocacy
4 Lobbying
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]Standards and certification

API distributes more than 200,000 copies of its publications each year. The publications, technical standards, and electronic and online products are designed, according to API itself, to help users improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their operations, comply with legislative and regulatory requirements, and safeguard health, ensure safety, and (perhaps most controversially) "protect the environment". Each publication is overseen by a committee of industry professionals, mostly member company engineers.
These technical standards tend to be uncontroversial. For example, API 610 is the specification for centrifugal pumps, API 675 is the specification for controlled volume positive displacement pumps, both packed-plunger and diaphragm types are included. Diaphragm pumps that use direct mechanical actuation are excluded. API 677 is the standard for gear units and API 682 governs mechanical seals.
API also defines the industry standard for the energy conservation of motor oil. API SN is the latest specification to which motor oils intended for spark-ignited engines should adhere since 2010. It supersedes API SM.[5] Different specifications exist for compression-ignited engines.
API provides vessel codes and standards for the design and fabrication of pressure vessels that help safeguard the lives of people and environments all over the world.
API also defines and drafts standards for measurement for manufactured products such as:
Precision thread gauges
Plain plug and ring gauges
Thread measuring systems
Metrology and industrial supplies
Measuring instruments
Custom gauges
Precision machining and grinding
ISO 17025 registered calibration
API has entered petroleum industry nomenclature in a number of areas:
API gravity, a measure of the density of petroleum.
API number, a unique identifier applied to each petroleum exploration or production well drilled in the United States.
API unit, a standard measure of natural gamma radiation measured in a borehole.
[edit]Educator intervention

In addition to training industry workers and conducting seminars, workshops, and conferences on public policy, API develops and distributes materials and curricula for schoolchildren and educators. The association also maintains a website, Classroom Energy. These materials take a baldly pro-oil-industry view of various major controversies including oil spills, pipelines, global warming, ocean acidity.
[edit]Public advocacy

In the second half of 2008, as the US presidential election neared, API began airing a series of television ads where spokeswoman Brooke Alexander encourages people to visit their new website, EnergyTomorrow.org API does not use their own name in the ads but does call themselves "The People of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry."
In October 2011, during debates on major job-creation bills and the Republican Party nomination race, similar ads aired (heavily on CNN, for instance) promoting a jobs strategy based on oil and tar sands developments such as Keystone XL.[citation needed] This was an attempt to gain approval of that pipeline before its December 2011 deadline by making it politically difficult to oppose.[citation needed]
API allies and supporters including the Koch brothers were also visible in this debate.[citation needed]
[edit]Lobbying

API has spent more than $3 million annually for each the last five years (2005 to 2009) on lobbying, and $3.6 million in 2009.[6] In API’s latest quarterly “Lobbying Report” submitted to the US Senate, the organization reported that it had 16 lobbyists supporting it to lobby on various Congressional activities.[7]
API conducts lobbying and organizes its member employees' attendance at public events to communicate the industry's position on various issues. A leaked summer 2009 memo from API President Jack Gerard asked its member companies to urge their employees to participate in planned protests (designed to appear independently organized) against the cap-and-trade legislation the House passed that same summer. "The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at [20 different] states," including Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Gerard went on to assure recipients of the memo that API will cover all organizational costs and handling of logistics. In response to the memo, an API spokesman told media that participants will be there (at protests) because of their own concerns, and that API is just helping them assemble.[8]
To help fight climate control legislation that has been approved by the US House, API supports the Energy Citizens group, which is holding public events.[9][10] API encouraged energy company employees to attend one of its first Energy Citizen events held in Houston in August 2009, but turned away Texas residents who were not employed by the energy industry. Fast Company (magazine) reported that some attendees had no idea of the purpose of the event, and called it “astroturfing at its finest.“[11][12]
Similarly the mass-media ads aired in 2008 and 2011 were focused on claims that more jobs would be created by high-carbon "dirty oil" projects than by energy conservation which tends to result in more construction industry, renovation and smart home / smart grid jobs. This claim is hotly disputed especially by the Obama Administration itself.
API promotes and funds Rick Perry events, which has attracted considerable public debate.
[edit]See also

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[edit]References

^ "Jack N. Gerard - President and Chief Executive Officer, American Petroleum Institute - Biography". Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Retrieved January 20, 2011.
^ a b API statement
^ [1]
^ "Rick Perry stumps Manchester - next stop Iowa", New Hampshire Public Radio, 14 August 2011.
^ http://www.api.org/certifications/engineoil/pubs/upload/EngineOilGuide_March2010.pdf
^ http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?lname=American+Petroleum+Institute&year=2009 Center for Responsive Politics, summary report
^ http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=AD1E2A9B-A167-4DA2-89A8-AB6D97C5F719 Second Quarter Lobbying Form, 2009, Secretary of the Senate
^ http://www.newsweek.com/id/212934?from=rss Newsweek, “The Browning of Grassroots,” Aug 20 2009
^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/business/energy-environment/19climate.html?bl&ex=1250827200&en=5ade135d7141b991&ei=5087 New York Times, "Oil industry backs protests of emissions bill," August 19, 2009
^ http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/08/20/big-oil-backlash/ Financial Times, "The big oil backlash," August 20, 2009
^ http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/american-petroleum-institute-demonstrates-how-screw-grassroots-ev Fast Company, “How demonstrates how to screw up a grassroots event, August 21, 2009
^ Talley, Ian (August 11, 2009). "Lobby Groups to Use Town Hall Tactics to Oppose Climate Bill". The Wall Street Journal.
[edit]External links

API Website
Center for Biological Diversity v Dept of the Interior 17Apr2009 DC Appellate Decision stopping offshore Alaska Oil Leases.
Sourcewatch profile
Center for Responsive Politics profile
Energy Citizens, API-sponsored organization
API code list at Piping-Designer.com
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