Japan Cooperation Center for Petroleum and Sustainable Energy (JCCP) was founded in November 1981 to promote friendly relations between oil-producing countries and Japan and contribute to securing a stable supply of oil to Japan through technical cooperation and personnel exchanges in the downstream sectors of the oil industry.
As a country that is almost fully dependent on imports of oil and gas to satisfy the largest part of its primary energy demand, Japan naturally gives high priority to maintaining friendly relations with oil and gas producing countries. Particularly in recent years, it has become ever more important to establish closer ties and strengthen mutual understanding with foreign countries, given the dramatic changes in the oil and gas situation, including changes in the demand-supply structure arising from economic growth in newly emerging countries in the Middle East and Asia, and the increasing geopolitical risks in some of the oil and gas producing countries.
Meanwhile, oil and gas producing countries are focusing their energy on going beyond the export of crude oil and natural gas and advancing into the refining, marketing and other downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry. They thus strongly seek the cooperation of advanced industrialized countries in obtaining the necessary technologies and in promoting human capital development. This trend can be understood as a manifestation of the strong commitment of oil and gas producing countries to increase the added value of their oil and gas resources and gain a foothold toward industrialization and industrial diversification in their country.
Given this situation, Japan, for its part, should respond actively to requests for cooperation in the oil and gas downstream sectors in oil and gas producing countries as an effective and appropriate measure for strengthening and developing closer ties with these countries and for helping to ensure fairness in the future supply of oil and gas.
From this perspective, JCCP was founded in November 1981 as a core organization that brings together the strengths of private companies in all relevant industries. With support from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, it has implemented various programs (HCD program in Japan, HCD program overseas, conferences and seminars, etc.) as a tangible form of cooperation in the downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry in foreign countries.
In 2001, JCCP inherited the technical cooperation program (joint technical cooperation projects, international research cooperation programs) from Petroleum Energy Center (now known as Japan Petroleum and Carbon Neutral Fuels Energy Center), and acquired a new avenue for pursuing even more effective and comprehensive operations.
In oil and gas producing countries today, and particularly in the Gulf countries, rapid increases in population together with recent increases in the employment of national workers in industries are creating momentum to strengthen the oil and gas downstream sectors, as represented by the construction and expansion of refineries by national oil and gas companies. With strong aspirations of becoming world-class companies, these national oil and gas companies are making active efforts to further increase the high added value of their oil and gas products and to address environmental issues.
As a result, interest in Japan is becoming more specific and specialized than ever before. Not only have conventional requests for cooperation become increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging, but deeper cooperation is also being sought in acquiring Japan’s distinctive management practices as well as human capital development methods. Conventional requests for cooperation are not only becoming increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging, but deeper cooperation is also being sought in areas such as Japanese-style management techniques and human capital development.
Cooperation requests from newly emerging countries mainly in Asia are also worthy of attention and growing in importance, as they harbor the possibility of Japan’s oil and gas industry advancing overseas and building infrastructures for expanding operations based on their expertise in actually ensuring the stable supply of oil.
Since its founding, JCCP has developed close cooperative ties with the oil and gas downstream sectors in countries around the world through training programs and technical cooperation projects. It will hereafter continue to enhance its friendly relationships with oil and gas producing countries and pursue its operations in order to contribute to securing a stable supply of oil and gas to Japan and to promoting economic growth in both Japan and oil and gas producing countries.