THERE is one word on the lips of James May as he settles to new his role of director general at the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA), it is reputation. The reputation of the UK's oil industry.

Yet for Mr May, reputation is not just another trendy buzzword. It is at the heart of the UK oil industry's future.

"As director general my main concern is to address the industry reputation issue, which encompasses everything that UKOOA and its members do," he says.

This is part of a direct change of strategy which Mr May wants to pursue.

The way the oil industry is viewed has been thrust into the limelight for a combination of reasons.

The public outcry over the decommissioning of the redundant Brent Spar loading buoy brought abandonment and the wider environmental debate to the fore. Added to this is the need to get across to the public how successful the industry really is and the contribution it makes to the UK's economy.

This is essential to address the perception of the UK's oil industry as a sunset one, and attract younger talent into a largely ageing workforce.

Mr May believes environmental issues are the biggest single area of risk when it comes to reputation. This is not because the industry is environmentally threatening or polluting, but because it has failed to capitalise on the progress it has made in this area.

He says the industry has made significant environmental progress. For example, methane emissions from platforms have fallen significantly over the last five years, and the industry has carried out research into the environmental impact of its work.

Unfortunately, he says, some of this research has fallen into the hands of environmentalists, who have used it against the industry.

"This is the key area of reputation where opportunities have been lost," he adds. Improving the oil industry's image will also be a crucial part in dispelling the popular fallacy that the oil industry is a business in decline.

Mr May believes this can be achieved through a multi-faceted approach. This will involve broadening out the media coverage of oil industry issues.

Targeting the education system will be another route. He says there is a job to be done in getting the education system to recognise the benefits of the oil industry, and hopefully bringing this into the curriculum.

UKOOA, together with the Natural History Museum, has produced a colour book entitled "Britain's Offshore Oil and Gas," and the aim is to put one copy in each of 7,000 schools. The Institute of petroleum has also carried out soome education related work.

But Mr May is adamant that if the oil industry is really serious about altering the way it is perceived then it should be even bolder, aiming to put a copy of this book into every household in the UK.

There is a need, he says, to get the remarkable story of Britain's oil industry across to the general public. "We have a good story to tell and we need to be telling it, in order to ensure that the industry's licence to operate in the general sense is sustained in the next 20 to 40 years," he says.

UKOOA has already set up a reputation task force to address the industry's image headed by Sue Karlsen of Fina. The appointment of a non-oil industry person as director general, the creation of a number of task forces over the last 18 months and the recognition that UKOOA needs to look outside of the technical sphere represents somewhat of a change of direction for the association.

Mr May held senior positions within the National Farmers Union for ten years and then went on to head the British Retail Consortium, where he spent seven and a half years before joining UKOOA.

"Previous director generals of UKOOA have been oil industry people," he says. "It is quite a culture jump for the industry to go outside."

He is aware that he brings to the post different skills to those which may be brought by an industry person, and says he is undergoing a "very steep learning curve," but one which after four and a half months in the post is now paying off.

Mr May is also aware that as both the oil industry and UKOOA evolve, there could be new issues to deal with.

He says that member companies themselves have been or are going through a process of restructuring, they are expanding internationally, and not all are finding it easy to commit time to UKOOA.

At the same tiime the association is braodening its responsibilities.

Over the next year UKOOA will be reviewing its balance of responsibilities and its budget on a rolling basis.

The end result of this may mean more responsibility being taken on by the secretariat accompanied by additional staffing and resources, or UKOOA dealing with fewer areas, but on a different level.

Alternatively it could mean working closely with other groups on particular issues. Mr May says the association will be reviewing a wide number of different factors.

UKOOA certainly has its work cut out at the moment.

The long-awaited White Paper on the sectors of industry currently excluded from the European Working Time Directive was published last week, and recommended that the offshore industry lose its present exclusion.

UKOOA is to continue to lobby for the continuation of the present exclusion, although Mr May admits that the current White Paper does show more of a willingness to take a compromise position than earlier drafts.

The new Labour govemment is to undertake a review of the North Sea tax system, with a view to possibly making changes in next spring's budget. UKOOA has set up a taxation task force to address the review.

And there are the ever-present environmental and decommissioning issues to deal with. The debate within the Oslo and Paris Commissions could result in generic rules on decommissioning. Meanwhile Greenpeace is pressing ahead with its campaign against global warming, targeting new oil developments on the Atlantic Margin.

Mr May rejects the argument that closing down the Atlantic Margin as an area of supply will affect global warming.

Clamping down on the UK oil industry will not prevent climate change. It will simply mean consumers switching to other sources of supply, with a significant loss of jobs for the UK industry.

He believes the area of industrial relations, particularly the way the industry interfaces with trade unions, also needs attention.

"We need to be willing to listen and talk to trade unions as UKOOA," he says.

There is already communication between UKOOA and unions, through the Oil Industry Advisory Committee and Opito (Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation), but the whole area needs to be re-examined, particularly in the light of the European Working Time Directive and other social partnership issues.

The association has already established a task force to look at industrial relations, which will be headed by Mark Hope of Enterprise, when George Watkins of Conoco moves to take over another group looking at safety, in conjunction with a number of other industry associations.