Experience
The oil and natural gas industry has been drilling for oil and natural gas for over a century; and for nearly three-quarters of a century, using hydraulic fracturing as a technique to extract oil and natural gas. With this experience, the industry can now domestically produce almost 2 billion barrels of oil per year and 26,000 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year, and employ over 9.2 million Americans.
Hydraulic fracturing, combined with horizontal drilling, has enabled North Dakota to rise from the 9th largest oil producing state in the nation to the 4th largest. With these technologies, companies have been able to retrieve more oil than they previously could. The U.S. Geological Survey now says 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of undiscovered oil are available – 25 times more than the original estimate made in 1995.
Collective wisdom from decades of experience and thousands of people, has resulted in technology, standards and procedures that maximize the ability to efficiently collect and produce oil and natural gas while protecting the environment, workers and citizens. Since 1924, the American Petroleum Institute (API) has tapped into the world’s leading experts in oil and natural gas to document, educate and put into production standards that are used across the industry – and the world. Many of these standards have been adopted as references for industry performance, and incorporated into state and federal regulations, and are also being adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, a global federation of more than 100 standards groups.
