With the donation of API (American Petroleum Institute) standards for industry best practices to the Pennsylvania College of Technology, graduates of various programs in the college’s School of Technologies will be ahead of the game if they apply for jobs in the oil and gas industry.

Representatives of API formally presented the standards at an event this week at the college’s welding lab in the Lycoming Engines Metal Trades Center.

“In 1919 API was created as the standards development organization. Five years later, in 1924 we published our first standard API five. In the subsequent 100 years we have grown this standards library into over 800 documents. They cover the entire spectrum of oil and gas from upstream, midstream and downstream, and they are widely recognized internationally as the, for lack of a better word, gold standard in terms of technical documents for oil and gas,” said Scott Garten, vice president, global industry standard (GIS) product management, who presented the standards to the college.

“So it’s fitting today, as we celebrate 100 years of standards that we are here today to memorialize and celebrate this donation of our standards library to Penn College. Based on the success of the adoption of our standards, the GIS division has really grown into a global Business. We have programs that we’ve developed from the API Standards. The standards have been incorporated by reference in over 3000 instances in the United States, at the federal, local and state levels. They’ve been incorporated by reference or referenced over 700 times internationally,” Garten said.

“So it’s important for us to partner with schools like Penn College, because wherever your graduates go, we hope a lot of your graduates enter into the oil and gas industry, wherever they go, whether they’re going to work in Pennsylvania or North Dakota or Texas, or whether they’re going to go to China or the Middle East or South America, they’re going to run into an API standard, and they’re going to run into an API program. We need to start these partnerships early on in their career, so they see us as a resource,” he added.

The standards library is created by input from input from representatives from around the world at an annual conference which maintains, evolves and creates the library.

“So this library really represents global best practices for our industry and for our industry operations,” Garten said.

“The thing that gets me the most excited about this, though, is that the standards truly further API’s mission, and we have a very, very noble mission. But when you distill it down, when you really break down, what we’re trying to do each and every day is trying to make the world more sustainable and make our workplaces and communities safer…We can’t do it alone, so I am, thrilled to be here to partner with Penn College to work with your faculty, to work with your staff in the future to further that mission of more sustainable communities, safer workplaces and safer communities,” Garten said.

Bradley M. Webb, dean of engineering technologies and Michael R. Allen, instructor of welding/department head, accepted the standards for the college.

“In our area, most of us think about the natural gas pipelines under the ground. So these are the codes, or the standards that would dictate how those connections occur, what’s going to pass for an appropriate joint,” Webb said.

“Now we have access for our students to actually read those regulations, be able to apply them here in the classroom setting. In the past, we’ve been doing it mostly from memory, from our faculty, from when they worked in industry. We’ve had access to bits and pieces of it, but not the entire Compendium,” Webb added.

In his remarks to the group attending the event, Webb had pointed out that there are lots of different ways to connect metal parts.

“Sometimes we’re going to rivet, sometimes we’re going to bolt connect. Sometimes we have different flanging and so this will help us determine what is appropriate, what’s going to pass code, and what’s going to be safe in the environment. Now we have the Compendium, instead of just one little piece of it,” Webb said.

By having this information the college will be able to incorporate this into the curriculum. The academic majors primarily served by the standards are welding & fabrication engineering technology (Bachelor of Science), welding technology (Associate of Applied Science), welding (Certificate) and non-destructive testing (Associate of Applied Science), according to information from the college.

“We’ll be able to feed this into our courses, and they will have seen it, so that way, the first time they see it in industry, it’s not this brand new thing. They’re used to it. They’ve seen it. They know how to interpret it,” Webb said.

“Because, you know, half the battle in code work is understanding how to interpret it and what was meant by the standard and what the CWI, the certified welding inspector, is going to look at when they come to inspect your well. So they’ll be much more versed in that to be successful, hopefully, the first time around,” he added.