Environmental Performance in the Exploration and Production Industry (2007 and 2008)
Authors: Bybee Karen 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains highlights of paper SPE 126616, ’Environmental Performance in the E&P Industry: Data for 2007 and 2008,’ by A.J. Findlay and W.M. Poore, International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, originally prepared for the 2010 SPE International Conference on Health, Safety, and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production, Rio de Janeiro, 12-14 April. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Since 2001, the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) has collected environmental-performance information from its member companies on an annual basis. This program has continued, and new sets of data for activities in 2007 and 2008 now have been produced. The ultimate aim is to provide a representative statement on the environmental performance in the upstream oil and gas industry. 

Introduction

Over the past 10 years, the OGP has collected environmental information from its member companies on an annual basis. The ultimate aim of this project is to provide a representative statement on the environmental performance of the oil and gas exploration and production industry. Secondary objectives are to provide a basis for individual-member companies to compare their environmental performance and to demonstrate the industry’s wish for greater transparency concerning its activities. This will help them to identify better and more-efficient ways of operating.

For more than 20 years, OGP has collated and published information on safety performance in the upstream sector, and by providing an international focus for the industry, this initiative led to substantial improvements in the performance of operators and their contractors. A parallel initiative on environmental performance first was considered in the mid-1990s but made little progress as companies debated questions of common definition, the representative nature of any data collected, and the problems of maintaining effective anonymity for contributors. Nonetheless, the 1997 conference of international experts on the upstream oil and gas industry held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, proved to be a watershed for the industry. The conference was organized jointly by the governments of The Netherlands and Brazil under the banner of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and addressed undertakings from the World Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro 5 years before. The conference provided a unique opportunity to bring the industry together with a broad range of industrial and societal stakeholders. These groups delivered a clear message to the industry to go further than saying how well it conducted its business, and to show that delivery was achieved.

In response to this challenge, OGP members established a mechanism for collecting and collating information on environmental performance in the upstream sector as the basis for an annual sectoral report. The first summary of globally aggregated data from an annual reporting cycle was produced in 2003 for data representing performance in 2002; a more extensive report showing globally and regionally aggregated data representing performance in 2003 was published in 2004. Annual reports of activities in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and summary reports for activities in 2001 and 2002, have been published previously.