In this episode of the Pipeliners Podcast, Russel Treat speaks with David Murk of the American Petroleum Institute about the upcoming API Pipeline, Control Room, and Cybernetics Conference. Their conversation covers how the conference has evolved over the past decade, key themes shaping the 2026 program, and why the event continues to be a central gathering for pipeline professionals.

API Pipeline Conference Preview Show Notes, Links, and Insider Terms

• American Petroleum Institute (API) the leading U.S. trade association representing the oil and natural gas industry, responsible for standards, advocacy, and industry events like the pipeline conference
• API Pipeline Conference and Expo one of the largest annual industry events focused on pipeline safety, operations, and technology
• Midstream the segment of the oil and gas industry responsible for transportation and storage of energy products between upstream production and downstream distribution
• Pipeline Safety Management System (SMS) a framework for managing pipeline safety through structured processes, continuous improvement, and risk-based decision-making
• API RP 1173 the recommended practice that defines pipeline safety management system requirements and guidance
• Professional Development Hours (PDHs) continuing education credits that professionals can earn through conference participation to maintain certifications and licenses
• Executive Roundtable a pre-conference leadership session bringing together operators, service providers, and industry stakeholders to discuss strategic challenges and direction
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology increasingly applied in pipeline operations for analytics, leak detection, and operational decision support
• Machine Learning a subset of AI focused on pattern recognition and predictive modeling, often used in integrity management and operational optimization
• Alarm Management the discipline of designing, rationalizing, and managing control room alarms to improve operator effectiveness and safety
• SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems used to monitor and control pipeline operations in real time from control rooms
• Integrity Management programs designed to assess, monitor, and mitigate risks to pipeline infrastructure
• Stakeholder Engagement processes used by operators to communicate and collaborate with regulators, communities, and other interested parties
• Distinguished Pipeline Safety Awards API’s annual peer-reviewed awards recognizing operators for exceptional safety performance
• Control Room Management (CRM) regulatory and operational practices governing control room operations, operator performance, and system safety

API Pipeline Conference Preview Full Episode Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast, episode 436, sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute. Driving safety, environmental protection, and sustainability across the natural gas and oil industry through world-class standards and safety programs.

Be sure and register for API’s 2026 Control Room and Cybernetics Conference and Expo, April 27th through the 29th at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, Colorado. This is a great opportunity to expand your knowledge, collaborate, and network with more than 700 industry professionals who are all working to sustain, transform, and secure essential energy needs across the globe.

Find out more about API at API.org.

The Pipeliners Podcast, where professionals, bubba geeks, and industry insiders share their knowledge and experience about technology, projects, and pipeline operations.

And now your host, Russel Treat.

Russel Treat: Thanks for listening to the Pipeliners Podcast. I appreciate you taking the time. And to show that appreciation, we give away a customized Yeti tumbler to one listener every episode.

This week, our winner is Amy Kinney with People’s Gas. Congratulations, Amy. Your Yeti is on its way. To learn how you can win this prize, stick around till the end of the episode.

This week, we speak with David Murk of API about the upcoming API Pipeline Conference.

Hey, David Murk, welcome back to the Pipeliners Podcast. I think it’s been about a year.

David Murk: Yeah, yeah, I think it has too. Russel, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Russel Treat: Well, I’ve asked you to come on to talk about the upcoming API Pipeline and Cybernetics Conference. So before we dive into all that, if you would remind the listeners who you are and tell us a little bit about what you do at API.

David Murk: Sure. So, Dave Murk. I am the Senior Director of Pipelines in our midstream segment at the American Petroleum Institute. And in my role as the Senior Director, I’m responsible for policy and regulatory oversight for pipelines in what we refer to, again, as our midstream segment, which is really the transportation of energy products from the upstream side all the way down to gas stations, retail, etc., on the downstream side. So I manage that policy piece in between.

Russel Treat: Awesome. And you’ve been managing the pipeline conference for a number of years now too. How long have you been managing the pipeline conference?

David Murk: Yeah, it’s been… I actually just hit my 10-year mark in April, April 3rd, at API. So a milestone for me. So yeah, I took over… that year was really my first pipeline conference. So this will be my 10th conference.

Russel Treat: Wow. And time flies.

David Murk: Time does fly, yep.

Russel Treat: That’s funny. Well, tell us, what have you learned over the years about the conference? I mean, what’s happened over the last 10 years as you’ve kind of been shepherding the Pipeline and Cybernetics Conference?

David Murk: Yeah, so it’s definitely evolved. Early on in my time at API, it was really just understanding and learning the nuances and the dynamics of the conference, and getting a feel for what it was that people were really looking for from the conference.

The Pipeline Conference itself, for us as an industry, is one of the largest, if not the largest, sharing and learning event that we hold every year when it comes to pipeline safety. There’s other conferences, like the International Pipeline Conference, that’s beyond the U.S. But for us, this is the largest sharing event.

So for me coming into the role, making the experience and what the program itself, and what an attendee would get out of the program, the technical sessions, is really what I’m striving for every year.

So we did a pretty major refresh about four years ago and really took a hard look at what and how the conference was set up and really what it was, again, that we felt attendees were looking for. So we made some significant changes to formats, to the program itself.

We’ve integrated what used to be two kind of distinct, separate parts of the conference, more of a traditional pipeline conference, and then we had a cybernetics control room piece that was separate. We’ve integrated those into one conference, which I think has gone over well.

Some other changes, again, being a significant event over two and a half days, we felt like it was important for attendees to get additional benefits out of it. So we’ve incorporated a professional development hour piece to this, so people attending the conference can get professional development hours toward certification and training that they need for some of those certifications and other qualifications that they need.

We’ve added an executive roundtable, which is a day before the conference, actually, and it brings in leadership within the industry. And that’s everything from pipeline operators to labor to key service provider contractors, etc. And we’re going on, I think, year three for that executive roundtable, which really is a great way to kick off a conference week by having leaders talk about what’s happening with our industry and really tying into the theme of the conference, which this year is “Good Business, Great Results,” and how we are at an inflection point and what, as leaders within the industry, we need to be doing to kind of move the needle and stay the course and really focus on, despite a lot of the noise and distraction and what’s happening in our world right now, what it is, as an industry, we need to be staying the course on, keeping focused on safety, and how do we continue to get great results and safety performance.

Russel Treat: Yeah. As I’m listening to you talk, Dave, I’m reflecting on… I guess I’ve been going to the pipeline conference now for about 10 years, probably about the same 10 years. And I’ve seen a lot of changes. I remember when I first went, it was kind of small, two, three hundred people, and very control room and control room technology focused. And now it’s much broader. It’s incorporating pipeline safety. There’s some integrity management tracks. It’s really becoming kind of a holistic pipeline operations conference. Come a long ways.

David Murk: Yeah, that’s a great point, Russel. And we really have evolved. We have over 12 tracks now, over 140 sessions, technical sessions. And you’re right, what was more of that very tactical still has a lot of that, which is important to a lot of folks who attend the conference. But we also have a stakeholder engagement track. We have a social, environmental track. So we have those other aspects of our industry that we need to be focused on as well. And the attendance increase over the last four years is really reflective of that.

Russel Treat: Tell us a little bit about what those numbers are.

David Murk: Yeah, yeah, we have grown. When I first got to API, our numbers were somewhere around 500-plus for the conference, and we passed 1,000 last year. And that goes for exhibitors too. When I first got to API, we were around 25, and this year we’re going to break records there too. We’re going to be at 50. And sponsorship as well has grown.

So almost doubled in attendance. Numbers increased, I think we’re looking at probably about the same this year in attendance. And again, I think, I would like to think, that’s reflective of the changes that we’ve made with the conference and really making it and meeting the needs of those attending the conference and kind of meeting their expectations for what a good, strong conference should be.

Russel Treat: Yeah, I always come back with more ideas than I can implement. I’ll put it that way.

David Murk: Yeah, there’s a lot of content there.

Russel Treat: So in terms of the tracks and the content, I know you really try to make sure that there’s content there that supports the industry and is contemporary and is addressing what’s going on. What are some of the new things you’re doing around the content itself for 2026?

David Murk: Yeah. So content-wise, one of the big areas, and I would like to say buzzwords that you hear a lot about in the news and just with our industry and being able to provide the energy needed to support it, is around data centers, AI, machine learning. It’s an area that’s still evolving within our industry.

As you know, we’ve had discussions with our leadership at various venues and within our policy groups, and it’s definitely still evolving. It’s something that we’re learning about, but we just felt like it was something that was important to add to the conference.

So we didn’t create a separate track for AI, because it is so integrated in a lot of different areas.

Russel Treat: It’s very invasive.

David Murk: Yeah.

Russel Treat: It’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. Everybody’s trying to figure out what to do with AI.

David Murk: Yep. And it can be used from everything from leak detection, integrity management, to even how you’re tracking stakeholders and engagement, etc. So it’s part of our innovation and technology track.

Russel Treat: Well, if I could interrupt you, I have to make a shameless plug, because one of the things that we’ll be doing at API is we’re going to be doing a live demo of a tabletop tool that we’ve built that leverages AI. So that’s going to be on Monday afternoon, and we’re actually going to run it live and kind of run a full-blown exercise scenario using this tool. We’ll see how that goes. Anybody who’s familiar with software and familiar with AI, you can speculate as to the gamble we’re making to actually try to pull that off.

David Murk: Yeah, it sounds like an abstract and a session for next year’s conference in Orlando.

Russel Treat: There you go. There you go. Absolutely.

David Murk: So that’s a big area. And then another area, we’ve got a new track around alarm management, which is more on the control room SCADA side of things, and important from just the overall management of our operations. So that’s a new track as well that we’ve added this year.

Russel Treat: Yeah, definitely very topical. It seems like there’s a lot going on in that domain at the moment, at least in our world.

So tell us a little bit about the keynotes. You’ve got two keynotes again this year. One’s a good friend of mine, Mark LaCour. I have him on the podcast every year, and we kind of make our predictions and rib each other about what ones are right and what ones were wrong. So I know that Mark’s going to be one of the keynotes. What’s Mark going to be talking about?

David Murk: Yeah. So Mark, you’re right, Mark is our day two keynote speaker. And Mark is also going to facilitate our executive roundtable. As you mentioned, Mark’s well known within the industry and has a podcast as well that’s very popular.

Mark’s going to be really hitting on, and again both keynotes are going to be tied into our “Good Business, Great Results” theme. Mark, bringing kind of that expertise from the years of experience he has in the oil and gas industry, is really going to be talking about the importance of leadership within our industry and driving us toward those results. What it is that, as an industry, we need to kind of be focused on and, in the climate and the landscape that we’re in right now, to drive us toward those results.

And again, I think Mark will be an excellent facilitator for the roundtable that we’re going to have the day before as well.

And then our day one keynote, Walter Nussbaum, he is an interesting guy. Our search for keynotes, usually we end up with about six recommendations and we narrow it down. And Walter is an executive coach and leadership consultant.

His kind of one defining idea is around the normalization of excellence. He’s big on helping leaders and organizations kind of raise their internal standards and excellence where it becomes the expectation, not the exception.

So again, for us as an industry and the inflection point that we’re in right now, and what I’ll talk about at the conference and the demand decade that we’re in and the realities that oil and gas is here to stay, it’s again to the theme: what is it that we need to be doing as an industry?

So both speakers are going to really be honed in on that, and really look forward to hearing from both of them at the conference.

Russel Treat: Awesome. Yeah, I look forward to both of those for sure.

And I guess you also will be doing the safety awards. That’s a big deal every year.

David Murk: Yeah, yeah. A big part of the conference as well is we give out our annual Distinguished Pipeline Safety Awards. This year, we’re going to add a fourth category. In the past, we’ve had three categories: small, medium, and large operators. This year, we’re adding an extra-large operator category. So we’ll have four awards this year.

And really, the awards for us, it’s a privilege for me to be a part of it because it’s an award that’s given out based on a review and recommendation from peers. So we have the awards process, we get applications, and then we have a group of peer operators that come together, that look at all the applications, and make a recommendation on the awardee.

And it’s based on that, and it’s based also on some of the data around incidents, etc., to that operator. But it’s really an honor and a privilege to do it because, again, it’s an opportunity in front of 900 to 1,000 people to recognize a small number of operators, even though we know the commitment to safety is there across our industry. It’s really highlighting exceptional within our industry.

So really, really great opportunity for us to do that every year.

Russel Treat: Yeah, I think one of the things I really like about the program is the fact that it’s peer-driven. So operators are evaluating one another and picking from themselves who they think should be recognized for their efforts. That, to me, is a big deal.

David Murk: Yeah, I agree.

Russel Treat: So what about SMS? We didn’t talk about that. I know that’s an ongoing and important subject, and I know that that standard is being looked at again because it’s kind of the 10-year anniversary of SMS as well.

David Murk: Yeah, it sure is. Yeah, we’re in the process of going through the comments to that second edition and, yeah, some good changes to it while keeping really the foundation for it, though the changes are not to the degree that it’s fundamentally changing the core elements of the standard. But it’s more making changes from what we’ve learned over the last… I guess it’s, yeah, it’s been 10 years, right, including an annex that helps kind of bring along small operators, give them some guidance in the vein of scalable, flexible, providing some additional guidance for smaller operators that might have, in the past, seen it as a little overwhelming, had some reluctance.

So there’s some good changes to it, and really looking forward to it. The comments that were received were not significant in the number that we received for modification. So yeah, we’re hoping to get that published. I think the target for that, if I’m not mistaken, is, don’t hold me to this, but I think it’s early 2027 as the target.

Russel Treat: I’ll put out the API standards disclaimer about date. Our best guess is, and we make no representations because we’re dependent on others to get it done.

David Murk: Exactly, exactly.

Russel Treat: I’m familiar with the process. I’m familiar with the process.

So let’s talk a little bit about the venue before we wrap up. Where is it, and where do you go to get registered and all that kind of good stuff?

David Murk: Yeah. So the Pipeline Conference is in Aurora, Colorado this year. It’s April 27th through the 29th. And if you just do a Google search for API Pipeline Conference and Expo, you’ll immediately come up to that website. You can register online.

I think hotel space is limited on a couple of the nights right now at this point, just based on the sheer number who have registered to this point. At this stage, we have over 800 registered for the conference with two and a half weeks to go. So really excited about the numbers. But I think we also have on our website some surrounding hotels for folks.

Russel Treat: Yeah, if you’ve never been to the venue, it’s a great venue. This time of year, it’s just a great time to be in the Denver area and be sitting outside on the patio. It’s lovely. It’s a great place to be.

David Murk: You’re right. It’s a beautiful venue. You feel like you’re in a lodge out in the mountains, and you’re literally looking at the mountains. A lot of outdoor areas to sit and enjoy that.

I hope people take the opportunity to maybe come in the weekend before, do something the weekend after, in Colorado, because clearly there’s a lot to do out there as well.

And one other… I know we’re not even through this year, but we’ve already got next year’s location identified. We’re going to be in Orlando, Florida for 2027 at the Orlando Hilton, which is another beautiful venue down there and right in the heart of Orlando, near a lot of fun activities as well.

So hopefully we have another great year, but got to get through this conference first. So one at a time, one at a time.

Russel Treat: I think it’s good to give people a heads-up and start getting it on their calendar. For me, this is one of the big events of the year for me. And I think we’ve been going to this for pushing 15 years now. And it’s one of the very few that we would not miss.

So I just highly recommend to the listeners, if you’re a pipeliner, this is the place to be. This is where the content is that you’re looking for. This is where you’re going to network with some of the best and the brightest in the industry and learn what’s going on, see what’s new, see what’s changing, all that good stuff.

So hope to see you there. I will be there. We will have a podcast booth set up. API has been very gracious for a number of years now. They always let us set up a podcast booth. We’ll be looking to interview some of the presenters, and in particular, we’ll look to interview the keynote speakers. So should be a great time. I’m looking forward to it.

David Murk: Yeah, look forward to seeing you out there as well. And let’s get a good conference here.

Russel Treat: Absolutely, absolutely.

So anyways, Dave and API have been really generous over the years. They’ve been a long-term sponsor. We’ll be there, we’ll be doing recordings, we’ll have a booth set up, we’ll be talking to some of the presenters. I hope to get both of the keynotes to come in for an in-depth interview, and should be a great time. Great content. Look forward to seeing you there.

And Dave, I look forward to seeing you there as well.

David Murk: Yeah, yeah, Russel, look forward to seeing you as well and looking forward to another really good conference out there.

Russel Treat: I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of the Pipeliners Podcast and our conversation with David.

Just a reminder before you go, you should register to win our Pipeliners Podcast Yeti tumbler. Simply visit PipelinePodcastNetwork.com and enter yourself in the drawing.

If you have ideas, questions, or topics you’d be interested in, or if you’d like to be a guest, please let me know on the Contact Us page at PipelinePodcastNetwork.com or reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you next week, and I hope to see you at the Pipeline Conference.