The Oil Industry Accounting Committee (OIAC) was established in July 1984 following a review by the Accounting Standards Committee (ASC), which recommended a framework of Statements of Recommended Practice (SORPs) as a complementary series of statements to accounting standards. SORPs would relate to particular industries and be developed by accounting bodies drawn from the industries concerned.

OIAC was formed out of the nucleus of a sub-committee of the ASC which had existed to consider issues relating to oil industry accounting. The objectives of OIAC at its formation were to advance and promote agreement on accounting within the oil and gas industry, in particular to develop SORPs for the oil and gas industry in accordance with guidelines laid down by the ASC.

OIAC issued four Statements of Recommended Practice on individual topics over the period 1986 to 1991. In 2000, these were consolidated into a single SORP for upstream oil and gas activities, entitled 'Accounting for Oil and Gas Exploration, Development, Production and Decommissioning Activities', which was updated in 2001.

Under proposals published as a consultation paper in August 2009 by the ASB, UK GAAP will effectively disappear for all but the smallest private companies. ASB will technically remain the UK body responsible for setting reporting standards but in practice these would all be EU adopted IFRS. Accordingly, the role for industry-specific SORPs will be limited to a transitional role relating to topics not yet covered by IFRS.

The ASB paper categorises all existing SORPs and envisages that the OIAC SORP will be withdrawn once the Extractive Activities IFRS is published (possibly 2013-15), although even this limited life is uncertain if the generic conditions of earlier parts of the paper are taken at face value. Either way, longer term, OIAC's role as the oil and gas industry’s SORP-making body will cease.