Publicity grows for Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma

 

The renaming of Oklahoma’s two major oil and gas industry groups following their merger is catching the attention of more Oklahomans.

The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma is the name of the new group following last year’s merger of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum association and the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association.

OK Energy Today reported the new name earlier this month and the story caught on with the Duncan Banner newspaper.

The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (OIPA) and the Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association (OKOGA) merged to create OIPA-OKOGA and has rebranded as The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, making it the only trade association in Oklahoma that represents every segment of the oil and natural gas industry.

Chad Warmington, the president of the new group, said that one of the main drives behind unification was to have a single mission and voice.

“I think at the end of the day the main reasons for the merger were really to have the unified voice,” he said. “One voice for the entire industry and we have from the smallest producers to the biggest — we have the pipelines, we have the refiners, service companies — if you produce oil or natural gas in Oklahoma, you would be a member of The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma.” Warmington said the other advantages were having more networking, resources and education for their members. 

“The ability to have a Devon, a Chesapeake or a Continental in a meeting, or a technical committee, that we have with a small producer who doesn’t have the access or ability to hire the technical expertise that you would have with a big company,” he said. “It’s really beneficial to those smaller companies, by getting them together we get the benefit of their knowledge and experience together and that gives us an ideal situation to come up with policies that enhance the oil and natural gas industry.”

For the oil and gas producers it’s also a way to advocate for policies and make the state a better place overall.

“The hope is that Oklahoma is better off because of it (the group) because of the 25 percent of all state revenue, the one in five jobs, the $300 million directly to education from oil and gas tax — I can go on and on in terms of the importance of the industry, everyone knows that in Oklahoma,” Warmington said. “I think what we want to have is that if the industry does well, Oklahoma does well and if Oklahoma does well that’s a win for all Oklahomans.”

Warmington said while they will advocate for policies, they are also cognizant of the bigger pictures, which he gave the example of the increase in earthquake activity.

“The earthquake issue — not a good thing, earthquakes were happening quite often and with some significant intensity in the Northern part of the state,” he said. “The state didn’t really know how to get their arms around it so the industry stepped up.” 

They gathered groups like The Oklahoma Cooperation commission, the geological survey, industry experts, Ground Water Protection Council and more to find the reason.

“As we went though the data we started to correlate it to disposal wells and it became the consensus of the group that we needed to limit the volume of disposal wells,” he said. “That was a significant negative impact to the industry but it was the right thing to do because that was the thing we were correlating earthquake activity with.”

One thing that the organization is dealing with now is a loss of 40 oil rigs within the state, which in turn means less tax revenue so they are trying to paint the reality for elected officials when it comes to spending.