About Us

Background

The IOPER are a group of regulators who formed in 2013 to focus and drive improvements to environmental performance in the global offshore petroleum exploration and production industry.

Environmental issues, including those associated with offshore petroleum operations, are gaining prominence globally. We believe a collaborative global response to environmental management regulation, and the application of prudent and cautious environmental practices, benefits the offshore petroleum industry, regulators, the public and the environment. 

Objectives

The objectives of the IOPER are: 

• To enable an exchange of information among regulators on:
• Offshore environmental trends;
• Industry environmental performance and best practices;
• Lessons from environmental incidents;
• Environmental regulatory practices and initiatives; 
• Trends identified through monitoring programs; and
• Measuring the effectiveness of regulatory activities.
• To promote best sustainable environmental performance globally.
• To provide a network of offshore petroleum environmental regulators for mutual support and advice when required.

The IOPER achieves its objectives through:

• An annual plenary meeting;
• Communication among members between annual meetings, as the need arises;
• The formation of working groups, and/or the commissioning of other competent stakeholder organizations, to advance particular issues of importance;  and
• Individual IOPER member country outreach initiatives. 

Terms of Reference

The current IOPER Terms of Reference are available here   

Annual Meetings

The IOPER hold annual plenary meetings to discuss environmental issues of common interest and share research findings, lessons learnt from incidents and country updates. Annual meetings are used to identify priority issues and the regulatory initiatives and work programs required to address them.