API Spec Q1 requirements explained: video brief

Three sections, not clauses 4 to 10

API Specification Q1 is the American Petroleum Institute's quality management system standard for the upstream supply chain. Its 10th Edition covers manufacturers of wellhead, valve, tubular, drilling and production equipment and the facilities that machine, weld, heat-treat, coat, distribute or repair those products. API describes Q1 as meeting most of the requirements of ISO 9001, with further requirements written for the risks of oil and gas. This short film walks through its structure.

Q1 does not follow the harmonised clause 4 to 10 structure. Its requirements sit in three sections: section 4 on the quality management system itself, section 5 on product realisation and section 6 on monitoring, measurement, analysis and improvement, with a normative Annex A on the use of the API Monogram by licensees. Section 4 covers the quality policy, measurable objectives, planning, communication, management responsibility and organisational capability.

What Q1 adds for oil and gas

Q1 adds the discipline an operator wants to see before a component goes downhole or under pressure: risk assessment, contingency planning for the events that would stop delivery, management of change with the people and customers affected informed, and controlled contract review, design, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection and release. Contingency planning, one of the requirements that most distinguishes Q1 from ISO 9001, is required in its own right.

The 10th Edition was published in September 2023 and has been effective since September 2024, with API's errata and addenda; the 9th Edition transition has ended. Registration is issued by APIQR, API's own registrar, after a full-system on-site audit; API calls the outcome registration rather than certification. The API Monogram is a separate product-marking licence that requires a Q1-conforming system.

API describes Q1 as meeting most of the requirements of ISO 9001 and adding requirements specific to the petroleum and natural gas industry, such as risk assessment, contingency planning, management of change, tiered supplier evaluation, quality plans and validated special processes. Before API accepts an application, the system must have run for at least four months, with a documented internal audit of all its elements and a documented management review; registered organisations then face surveillance audits at least once every calendar year.