April 1, 2022

New President inaugural address

JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation ("JX") (President and CEO, Toshiya Nakahara) announces the New President inaugural address as follows.

I took up the role of President from today. I'm honored to receive the baton handed over to me by our former President Hosoi. I will focus all my efforts on managing this company and contributing to our growth.

１．Two-Pronged Approach

Last year, under the leadership of President Hosoi, we formulated the Energy Transition Roadmap (ETR), to put us on a path for pursuing our two-pronged approach. This ETR outlines our envisioned goals for 2050. It also redefines our shared concept, "Explore the EARTH and Create Value," as our corporate philosophy.

Guided by this philosophy, "Explore the limitless possibilities on the earth and create value for society," we will pursue the following strategies, thinking of them in an integrated way.

２．Transformation

To advance our two-pronged approach, we must implement transformation. But that doesn't mean that I'm saying to you all, "Let's transform" or "Let's make big changes."

Transformation in itself is neither a goal nor a target. I think of transformation as the result of an accumulation of small changes, new choices, and new habits. In one or two years from now, we should be able to sense that things have changed without us noticing. By then we should be hearing people from outside the company remark, "JX has really changed."

I want us to make incremental progress toward that, step by step.

３．Agile implementation

There is one thing I want to focus on in the near term. That is agile implementation.

The "agile" means:

Maintaining compliance, HSE, and security as the major premises;

◆maximizing learning through fast trial-and-error;

◆producing continuous output (value) quickly, even if it is small and incomplete;

◆and exciting people (including employees).

It is this kind of conduct and action, applied at an individual and organizational level.

When I talk about "agile implementation," the "implementation" means starting with the concrete issues, with what can be done incrementally. For example, we will focus on the following:

I. Avoid excessive formality or rigidity, which are obstacles to an agile approach

II.Ensure that we cultivate and deploy agile talent

III.Promote agile, autonomous action among our people and our organization, by adhering to Genbashugi (the "hands-on approach")

IV. Look outside more to learn from the world outside our company, also share more externally.

４．"Hardship now, pleasure later"

My personal motto is the phrase, "Senyu koraku," which translates as "Hardship now, pleasure later." This phrase was a saying of Fan Zhongyan, who lived during the Northern Song dynasty of China. It means "A good ruler should worry before people start worrying and enjoy himself after the people have enjoyed themselves."

These days it is often used to mean "If you work hard now you can enjoy yourself later."

I use it to mean, "Let's prepare pessimistically and deal with things optimistically."

In developing the ETR, we considered and discussed the Energy Transition to 2050, starting from pessimistic assumptions about the E&P business. Our minds are already prepared.

So, let's use our two-pronged approach to move forward with a sense of optimism toward a brighter future.

(End of Document)