Senior executives from nine leading standards bodies associated with the oil and gas industry hosted the inaugural Standards Leadership Council (SLC) forum to encourage collaboration on open standards for the benefit of the upstream industry. Over 125 industry members attended the all-day event at the Marriott Westchase Hotel in Houston, hosted by BP, geoLOGIC, Halliburton and Oracle.

The SLC was formed in February of this year to avoid duplication in standards development projects and to address mutual challenges like determining business value metrics for standards adoption, enhancing membership benefits and maintaining financial sustainability. In addition, the SLC is planning additional joint industry events to deliver its standards adoption message across the industry.  

The SLC Forum was keynoted by Derek Mathieson, president of western hemisphere operations for Baker Hughes, who described the importance of adopting and implementing open standards as key to the digital oilfield. He encouraged the delegates to increase industry collaboration for standards and to participate in the development process.
 
The participating standards organizations and leaders at the forum were: Energistics (Jerry Hubbard), MIMOSA (Alan Johnston), Open Geospatial Consortium (Carl Reed), OPC Foundation (Tom Burke), PIDX International (Tony Aming), PODS (Janet Sinclair), POSC Caesar Association (Nils Sandsmark), PPDM Association (Trudy Curtis), and Society of Exploration Geophysicists (Jill Lewis).