Singapore (August 11, 2004)

Good Evening, Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Mayor of North East CDC; Mrs Zainul Abidin Rasheed; Mr Varaprasad, Deputy President, National University of Singapore, Mrs Varaprasad; Professor Edwin Thumboo, Director, The Centre for the Arts, National University of Singapore; Students; Ladies and Gentlemen.  I am very pleased to be here with you today.  I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed on his new additional responsibility as the Minister of State for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Congratulations!

We are happy to continue our work with NUS on the ExxonMobil Campus Concerts.  The ExxonMobil Campus Concerts provides a unique platform to nurturing student talents.

The Concerts also foster the flourishing of arts in the university and adds vibrancy to the community here in Pasir Panjang, Ayer Rajah, Clementi and Alexandra.  

Over the years, we have seen changes - changes that reflect the development, maturing and rooting of art into the fabric of campus here in Kent Ridge. For example, our audiences have grown very receptive to watching performances in an informal setting at the monthly Unplugged Sessions at Dome Kent Ridge.

This year, I have been told that the newly formed ExxonMobil Campus Concerts Crew which is made up of students, has taken up the ownership of promoting this concert series such as developing and executing marketing plans to attract their friends and faculty members to the campus concerts series.  

This spirit of taking ownership is what we in ExxonMobil use as the foundation of our approach to safety.

Let me elaborate, the cornerstone of our business is running our plants and facilities in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. In 2003, we continued to be an industry leader, with a company record for the fewest safety incidents.  We are committed to continuous improvement in our safety performance so that we can achieve our goal of Nobody Gets Hurt.  This can only be achieved if every employee and contractor takes ownership of his or her own safety.   In other words, safety is not only about awareness; it is about action - action and ownership of safety behaviour.

Still on the topic of ownership, as you may know, ExxonMobil launched its Phase 2 "We're Litter-Free Service Stations" last Monday, 2 August.  This is part of the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Singapore, Litter-Free ? Programme which takes, again, a behaviour-based approach to taking care of the environment and keeping Singapore clean.  The programme is built on the belief that Singaporeans can play a bigger role in taking ownership of our surroundings by keeping Singapore litter-free.

When we first launched the Phase 1 "We're Litter-Free Service Stations" programme in October last year, all Esso and Mobil Service Stations adopted the state land bordering its premises by keeping them clean and litter-free.  In our recent Phase 2 programme, all the 77 Esso and Mobil Service Stations will give out shopping bags printed with environmental messages with each convenience store purchase.  Our cashiers will also remind customers to reuse these bags for their trash.

ExxonMobil's involvement with the Singapore, Litter-Free ? Programme started with the 2002 National Day Parade where we provided 60,000 litter bags for the spectators to encourage them to take ownership of their litter by disposing their trash into the bags provided.  In that year, it took 5 hours to clean up the National Stadium instead of 8 hours in the prior year. This is our 3rd year working with the NEA on the litter-free initiative at National Day.  Through this, we hope that that all Singaporeans can play a bigger role in caring for the environment.

We believe in making a difference in the community that we operate in through the different community outreach programmes that we support.

We hope that the ExxonMobil Campus Concerts will continue to be a programme owned by the students of NUS and form a memorable part of their life in campus.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the campus concert crew for making ExxonMobil campus concerts possible.  We would also like to specially thank Ms Abigail Lau and Mr Zachery Rajendran for working closely with us in this programme.

We would like to take this opportunity to also thank the Centre for the Arts, National University of Singapore, for giving ExxonMobil an opportunity again to sponsor the ExxonMobil Campus Concerts.  We have enjoyed working with you in this project and look forward to an active 2004 / 2005 campus concerts season.

Thank you.