API 653 certification: what the number on the report means

An API 653 inspection report is signed by an individual holding a current certification, and the report carries that person’s number. The certification is administered by the American Petroleum Institute, requires documented experience and education to sit for, involves an examination on the standard and the codes it references, and it expires.

What the certificate actually establishes

That an individual demonstrated, on a specific date, knowledge of the standard and of the calculations it requires, and met an experience threshold. That is genuinely valuable and it is the reason a report without a number is not an inspection, in a way that the routine walk your own people carry out never has to be.

What it does not establish

• That the inspection was thorough. Certification is a knowledge test, not a supervision regime. Two certified inspectors can produce reports of very different quality.
• That the person who was on site is the person who signed. Ask who is attending, not just who signs.
• That the NDT was done by someone qualified for the method. Thickness testing and other techniques carry their own qualifications, separate from the 653 certification.
• That it is current. Certifications expire and require recertification. An expired number on a report is a real problem, and it is a problem the report’s recipient discovers, not the report’s author.

The three questions worth asking, before price

1. What is the certification number of the inspector who will attend, and when does it expire?
2. Who will perform the thickness readings, and to what qualification?
3. Will the report include the raw data and the calculations, or only conclusions?

All three have short factual answers. A supplier who is slow to give them is telling you something.

Verify it rather than trust it, including with us

API operates a public register of individuals holding its certifications. Checking a number against it takes a couple of minutes, it is the single most useful piece of due diligence available on this purchase, and it applies to us exactly as much as to anyone else. Our number and its expiry date are on the about page and on every report.

What is not covered by any certificate

The judgement call. The standard sets out how to calculate a minimum thickness and how to derive an interval, and then somebody has to decide what a particular pattern of pitting on a particular bottom means for a tank that will hold product for another decade. That is experience, and the only way to assess it is to read a report the person has written.

Ask for a redacted example. Any inspector worth commissioning has one.