API Offshore Standards Activities: Equipment Quality

ABSTRACT The American Petroleum Institute has introduced new quality requirements into its drilling and producing equipment standardization program. These new requirements, described in this paper, require manufacturers who want to be licensed to use the API monogram to have in place in their manufacturing facility a quality program which conforms to API Spec Ql, Specification for Quality Programs. This Quality Program must be described in a Quality Manual submitted to API. After evaluation of the Quality Manual, surveys of manufacturer facilities will be conducted to assess compliance with the quality manual, Spec Ql, and the specification covering the product being manufactured. The new API Quality Program was developed to improve the quality of drilling and producing equipment. API product specifications are being reviewed to determine whether new quality requirements are needed and to adapt them for use in the survey program. When this program is fully implemented for a product specification, such as API Spec 6A, Specification for Wellhead and Christmas Tree Equipment, markings on the product, including the API monogram, will show that the product has been manufactured in accordance with a widely recognized specification and that the manufacturer has a functioning quality program in place in his manufacturing facility. This new API program is designed to satisfy regulatory and certification requirements. NEW API QUALITY REQUIREMENTS In June 1983, the API Production Department, through its Operating Committee, approved recommendations of a special task group directed at promoting acceptance of API standards both domestically and internationally. These recommendations to strengthen the API standards were that:more strict quality control/quality assurance requirements be included in API specifications,new standards be developed where needed, and thaton-site surveys of manufacturers be required to strengthen the credibility of the API monogram licensing program. The Operating Committee also decided that the monogram licensing requirements should be separated from the product specifications. The administration of the monogram licensing program is now totally an API staff responsibility. Standardization committees, henceforth, have responsibility for only the technical content of the product specifications. It was further agreed that a separate monogram license would be required for each manufacturing facility at which the monogram was to be applied. Separate licenses are also required for each specification under which a manufacturer would monogram a product. In addition, the manufacturer must now have an API-approved, functioning quality program and renew his license every three years. To assist in the implementation of these recommendations, the Executive Committee on Standardization of Oilfield Equipment and Materials appointed a Committee on Quality (18) in March, 1984. The charge to the committee was to develop a "quality document" applicable to all API product specifications and to develop recommendations for administration of a survey program.