Mr. Sase, Executive Director of JCCP, Visits Russia and Kazakhstan

JCCP is strengthening its relationship with countries of the former Soviet Union, in recognition of the fact that they are potential sources of oil and energy supplies in the future. In fact, Russia was the sixth-largest crude oil exporter to Japan in fiscal 2008, following the Middle East countries. It is an oil-producing country on par with Saudi Arabia, and the largest gas-producing country in the world.
On October 22, 2009, Mr. Masataka Sase, Executive Director of JCCP, had the opportunity to attend the First Joint Commission of the Japan-Kazakhstan Government and Private Sector on Economic Cooperation, which was held in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. Taking the opportunity of attending the conference, Mr. Sase also visited major JCCP counterparts in Russia and Kazakhstan to hold policy dialogues with the top management of those organizations.
Since the last policy dialogues that were held with top management personnel in countries of the former Soviet Union was in 1994, this became the first time in 15 years that JCCP has held such dialogues in those countries.


1. Russia


(1) LUKOIL Co.

LUKOIL Head Office

Since the birth of the Russian Federation in 1991, a total of 498 participants have visited JCCP. Among this number, as many as 140 participants were from LUKOIL Co., the largest oil company in Russia.
JCCP has been deepening its friendly relationship with LUKOIL particularly in recent years. In mid- September 2008, a Customized Program-Overseas (CPO) on “Energy Saving in Refineries” was held at LUKOIL’s Nizhny Novgorod Refinery. About two weeks later in early October, a Customized Program-Japan was held on the same topic.
On October 19, Mr. Sase visited the LUKOIL Head Office and met with Mr. Pikhtovikov Yuri, Deputy Director and GM of the Human Resources Dept., Mr. Antonov Mikhail, Deputy Head of Global Refining, and a number of other members.
LUKOIL has recently purchased two refineries in Western Europe in a joint investment with another company. Such advancements into foreign countries are expanding large-scale investments by the company, so that its primary challenge now lies in the effective implementation of these investment projects. In response to this challenge, the Global Refining Department is in need of specialists who have professional knowledge about both technologies and the economy, and is currently concentrating on developing such human resources. They are expected to have the technical capabilities to conduct market studies and derive combinations of refining equipment that would produce the required product, as well as the capacity to calculate the anticipated economic effects of such a project. In view of this situation, Mr. Mikhail said he looks to JCCP’s further cooperation in the future to accomplish LUKOIL’s major objectives of effectively executing overseas projects and developing technical/economic specialists.
Mr. Sase shared his view that it is important to engage in mutual interaction and exchanges of views on a continuous basis by means of top level meetings, and to submit requests in order to constantly achieve a new level of mutual understanding and establish new courses of action. He then responded to Mr. Mikhail’s expectation of JCCP by saying that JCCP wishes to promote technology exchanges that focus on increasing thevalue of petroleum products, and would also like to provide the requested cooperation, as it is an area in which Japan has accumulated experience.


(2) ROSNEFT Oil Co.

With Mr. Dmitriy Mamonkin, Deputy Director of Refining Dept. (third from left), at the ROSNEFT Head Office

On October 19, Mr. Sase visited the head office of ROSNEFT Oil Co., where he was greeted by Mr.
Dmitriy N. Mamonkin, Deputy Director of Refining Dept., Ms. Tamara G. Solovykh, Head of Personnel
Development HR Dept., and other members.
The ROSNEFT members first thanked JCCP for all the extremely meaningful training programs that it has offered in Japan up until last year. They then expressed their interest in the Kyoto Protocol as an important influence in the rapid changes that are taking place in regard to refineries today, and requested future training programs related to environmental management and energy conservation. They also spoke about their plan to group all employees into three levels—refinery level, middle level, and top management level—and to train them according to their respective level. Furthermore, they stated that the company places emphasis on new refinery construction projects and other upstream projects, as well as on the ongoing Sakhalin Project. In addition to the Customized Program-Japan (CPJ) that is currently being considered for ROSNEFT, it wishes to discuss the possibility of other themes, program details and timing with JCCP, and hopes to receive even greater cooperation from JCCP in the future.


(3) Japanese Embassy in Russia
In the afternoon of October 19, Mr. Sase visited the Japanese Embassy in Russia and met with Mr. Manabu Miyagawa, Minister for Economic Affairs, and Mr. Koji Toyoshima, Secretary for Economic Affairs. Mr. Sase requested the embassy’s continued support after explaining the purpose of his visit to Russia and the present status of JCCP activities in the country.
Mr. Miyagawa, for his part, provided highly useful information on the recent state and outlook of Russia’s economy. For example, he explained that Russia’s economy hit bottom in summer 2009 and has thereafter begun to show signs of recovery, that an APEC conference is scheduled to be held in Vladivostok in 2012, and that the main theme of that conference will be development cooperation in the Far East and Eastern Siberia. Besides securing large resources, Russia is aiming to acquire advanced technological capabilities, and hopes to obtain Japan’s cooperation to achieve this goal.


2. Kazakhstan


(1) CDB-OGI (JSC Central Dispatching Board of Oil and Gas Industry)

With Mr. Yerbol Tulebaev, President of CDB-OGI (center)

Kazakhstan has a population of 15 million living in a land area seven times larger than Japan. It is a country endowed with abundant energy and mineral resources, with 3.2% of the world’s oil reserves, 1.1% of the world’s natural gas reserves (2009 BP statistics), and a wealth of mineral resources including rare metals.
As the country is poised to become a major resource supplier in the future, many foreign countries, including Japan, are participating in diverse resource development projects in Kazakhstan. JCCP has received 165 participants to its courses between 1993 and 2008, though there was a period of discontinuation during that time. Among the countries of the former Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has sent the second-largest number of participants to JCCP, after Russia.
CDB-OGI is an institution which analyzes trends in the oil and gas industries inside and outside of Kazakhstan and reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. It also participates in regulation and standardization activities in the oil industry.
On October 21, Mr. Sase met with Mr. Yerbol Tulebaev, President, and Mr. Khassenov Askhat, Director Technical Regulation.
JCCP and CDB-OGI had been planning on holding a Customized Program-Overseas (CPO) in Kazakhstan in September 2009, but the plan was not realized due to mutual scheduling conflicts. Mr. Tulebaev expressed regret at this postponement and reiterated once again his desire to see the seminar implemented during the next fiscal year. The JCCP side responded affirmatively, saying that it would be happy to host the seminar if the timing is right on both sides. Mr. Tulebaev also requested JCCP’s continued cooperation in implementing training programs that satisfy advanced technology needs in Kazakhstan, especially in relation to the refinery expansion and modernization projects that are slated to commence hereafter between 2009 to 2015 in order to upgrade the quality of petroleum products to meet Euro 4 and Euro 5 standards instead of Euro 2 and Euro 3.


(2) JSC NC KazMunayGas

With Mr. Daniyar Tiyessov, Managing Director of KazMunayGas (center)

KazMunayGas is an oil and gas company 100% owned and operated by the government of Kazakhstan. It integrally undertakes a broad range of oil and gas projects, from the upstream to downstream sectors of the industry, based on the energy policies of the country. In recent years, the steady development of the oil and gas industry has given a large boost to Kazakhstan’s economic growth. As a company that is at the core of oil and gas development in Kazakhstan, KazMunayGas intends to continue expanding its business in diverse directions, and is attracting the strong interest of Japanese companies.
On October 21, Mr. Sase visited the company and met with Mr. Daniyar Tiyessov, Managing Director, Oil Processing and Marketing; Mr. Zhanbolt Zh.Tuganov, Deputy Director of Oil Processing; and Mr.Airat Shaanov, Deputy Director, HR Dept. A group of JCCP graduates also attended the meeting.
Mr. Tiyessov, after expressing his deep appreciation to JCCP for its many years of cooperation and assistance, noted that engineers from KazMunayGas who have participated in JCCP training have come to establish friendly cooperative relationships with many Japanese companies, and said he would like to continue sending engineers to JCCP in the future. As KazMunayGas is actively seeking to modernize its refineries, it specifically requested a human resource development seminar that focuses on energy conservation, TPM, and safety issues.
Mr. Sase told the KazMunayGas members that JCCP wishes to strengthen its relationship with KazMunayGas, and would be happy to receive many participants from the company to its training programs. He also assured them that JCCP will look into any request or issue that KazMunayGas might have and contribute through the implementation of training courses and technical cooperation.


(3) First Joint Commission of the Japan-Kazakhstan Government and Private Sector on Economic Cooperation

Mr. Magauov A. Maratavich, Vice Minister (center), at the joint conference

On October 22, Mr. Sase had the opportunity to attend the conference, which was held in the foreign ministry conference hall in Astana. The conference was held based on an agreement between President Nazarbayev and then-Prime Minister Fukuda during the president’s visit to Japan in 2008, which called for the establishment of a public-private joint framework for comprehensively discussing environmental improvement and economic cooperation issues relating to trade and investment expansion.
The conference commenced with an opening speech by Mr. Magauov A. Maratavich, Vice Minister of Energy and Resources, who articulated his expectation of Japan’s cooperation in the oil, steel, medical, and machinery sectors, as well as the information technology sector, on which Kazakhstan is placing particular emphasis today. On the Japan side, Mr. Hiroyuki Ishige, Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (and conference chairman), said it is important for Kazakhstan and Japan to mutually cooperate in maximizing the benefits of Japan’s reliable technologies. He also noted that personal connections and relationships of trust are essential to promoting trade and investment, and said he hopes the conference would provide a starting point for establishing such connections and relationships.
The opportunity to attend the conference held significant meaning to JCCP, as it allowed Mr. Sase to communicate with people from both the private and public sectors in Kazakhstan. JCCP wishes to participate in this type of conference again in the future as an effective approach to other potential JCCP counterpart countries as well.
Mr. Sase spent a day in Russia and one and a half days in Kazakhstan meeting with various management -level people in the oil downstream sector in the two countries. He reconfirmed JCCP’s friendly ties with JCCP counterpart organizations and acquired valuable opinions and views of future JCCP activities. Based on the relationships of trust JCCP has cultivated with various organizations through the years, we intend to further enhance JCCP training and technical cooperation programs.


(by Tetsuji Kubota, Training Dept.)