A Brief History Of The American Petroleum Institute (API)

The Early Years

The American Petroleum Institute was founded in New York City in 1919, almost 80 years after oil was first discovered in the state of Pennsylvania. The stated goals of the organization at the time were to “afford a means of cooperation with the government”, “to foster foreign and domestic trade in American petroleum products”, “to promote in general the interests of the petroleum industry”, and “to promote the mutual improvement of its [API’s] members and the study of the arts and sciences connected with the oil and natural gas industry”. Those remain at the core of the organization today.

API Standardization

Perhaps the single most important thing that American Petroleum Institute has done is to foster standardization for oil production, formulation, and packaging in the US. However, due to the scale of the US industry, this standardization has also spread around the world. According to the API’s website, “American Petroleum Institute has developed more than 700 standards to enhance operational safety, environmental protection, and sustainability across the industry, especially trough these standards being adopted globally”.

One of the most critical standards set by the organization is the standard for energy conservation of motor oil. The current standard at the time of this writing is API SN, which supersedes the previous standard, API SM. This standard applies to engine oils used in any application where there is a spark-ignited engine (internal combustion engine, or ICE).