CEO Remarks at the 2017 President's Excellence Awards

Remarks by Mr. Amin Nasser, President & CEO, Saudi Aramco

Good morning. Congratulations to all the award recipients today for their accomplishments. And I want to extend this recognition to all the employees and contractors who have played a role in helping these organizations in their success here today.

The President’s Excellence Award honors high achievement in areas that are absolutely critical to the success of Saudi Aramco: Safety; Environmental Protection; Maintenance and Reliability; and Operational Excellence.

While the Maintenance-and-Reliability and Operational Excellence awards are new this year, the Safety and Environmental Protection awards are long-standing, highly competitive traditions in the company, each with its own rich history dating back more than a decade.

Today, we bring these awards together under the umbrella of a company-wide pursuit of excellence.

Though quite diverse, these awards are all linked to one inseparable outcome: that is to make Saudi Aramco more successful and better than what we are today. What these groups share in common is that for each of them, excellence is more than a set of year-end results. So it’s more than a destination, it’s a journey.

Of course, some of the most important journeys begin with a vision. …

Six years ago, we put forth a vision for our company … that in the years ahead, Saudi Aramco will become the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals company.

And since then, although the oil and gas industry has undergone fundamental transformations, Saudi Aramco is now in the midst of a period of growth and development unmatched in its eighty-four (84) year history.

Ladies and gentlemen, like many of you here today, I was trained as an engineer. I find details very important. … So when we talk about “vision,” the details are in the implementation.

The question we must ask is: how do we implement such an ambitious vision for the company? In such times – particularly in a low-oil-price environment – what got us where we are today will not get us where we want to be tomorrow.

Simply put, the implementation of our vision to become the world leader in energy and chemicals must be nothing short of a tireless, companywide pursuit of excellence. 

When we raise the level of our ambitions … in turn, it will raise the level of our achievements.

Across the groups we recognize today, their achievements represent countless thousands of hours of dedication to world-class performance.

The President’s Award is designed not simply to reward excellence, but to recognize it. By recognizing these achievements, we mean to encourage the sharing of best practices, and a healthy sense of competition across the company.

In fact, we are competing with the leading companies in the world.

In a recent survey of over 500 global CEOs, they ranked Excellence among their top three challenges in 2017. They understand – as we understand – that the pursuit of organizational excellence is the new “science of success.”

So I call upon all of you to be the drivers of innovation and excellence within your organization. Make excellence more than a series of metrics, make it a mindset – a part of your group’s DNA.

With Vision 2030, and the upcoming IPO of the company, we have the opportunity to take excellence to a much higher level.

By doing so, we will soon realize that not only have we moved our company and in the process Saudi Aramco will have become a global leader in energy and chemicals.

It is a journey we are on together … and we are well on the way.

Thank you.

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