S-Oil's 1st Overseas Meeting

Oil refiner holds 'Leadership Workshop'in Singapore to make S-Oil a top-class company

S-OIL Corp. held an "Officer Leadership Workshop"in Singapore on Sept. 8~9, with all of its 36 officers, including CEO Samir A. Tubayyeb, present. Through this workshop, which was S-OIL's first overseas workshop, the 36 officers sympathized with the need to strengthen their competencies and leadership for their company's leap into a global market leader, and pledged to make enterprise-wide efforts to help the company join the ranks of world-class oil refiners.
"Thanks to all our officers and employees"efforts, we ranked among the Fortune's Global 500 Companies and are achieving our best-ever performance,"CEO Tubayyeb said at the workshop. "But, we should not be complacent about what we are now because now is a very important time for us to develop strategies for our sustainable growth and come up with measures for our leap into a respectable market leader."Saying that leadership is the most critical factor in achieving the company's goals, he encouraged each and every officer to further enhance their competencies and leadership through the workshop.
During the workshop period, the officers were divided into small groups, and crossed 6 kilometers of sea by rowing a boat. They also participated in other diverse outdoor programs under the heat of the tropical sun, thereby improving their teamwork and promoting cooperation among them. Through Hanyang University professor Song Young-su's lecture on leadership, following discussions among them, etc., they had the time to recharge themselves and strengthen their capacities to lead their company.
A company official said, "We held this workshop in a foreign country, a place far away from our office, in order to make our officers get away from their busy daily lives and focus all their attention on the theme of the workshop."As a refiner which receives the highest attention in the Asia Pacific region, he added, S-OIL hopes that the leadership workshop in Singapore could be a good opportunity for all its officers to gain hands-on experience of foreign markets and for it to publicize its continued interest in international oil markets.
S-OIL Corporation (CEO: Samir A. Tubayyeb) said on August 2 that it posted 6,962.7 billion won in sales and 709.4 billion won in operating income in the first half of this year. The refiner's sales declined by 1.2% compared with the first half of 2006, due to a regular plant turnaround, but its operating income jumped by 40.4% over a year earlier.
Amid growing demand for light oil products on international markets, the price gap between light and heavy oil products is widening. S-OIL, which serves as a light oil supply hub of the Asia-Pacific region with the help of its world-class bunker-C cracking center, took full advantage of this international market condition, thereby achieving such outstanding results in the first half---particularly in operating income, which rose by a whopping 40.4% from the same period last year.
Although the domestic petroleum market has been stagnant lately, S-OIL has run its high value-added facilities to the full, enhanced the efficiency of manufacturing processes, and made other efforts to improve production yield. This has enabled the refiner to mass-produce high value-added light oil products like ultra-low sulfur gasoline and ultra-low sulfur diesel, on a stable basis. Furthermore, S-OIL has exported more than 50% of production, by adopting a marketing strategy that makes use of overseas markets effectively. All these helped boost profitability in the company's refining operations.
In non-refining operations as well, the refiner has actively coped with changing market conditions. With petrochemical and lube base oil markets remaining strong across the globe, it has raised production of high value-added petrochemical and lube base oil products to the maximum and secured stable sales networks for the products. This contributed greatly to the surge in first-half operating income, it explained.
"Crack margin is still on the increase in the international oil market as the price gap between light and heavy oils remains unchanged and the gap between high-sulfur and ultra-low sulfur products is widening," said an official at S-OIL.
"Considering this international market trend, our continued effort to improve manufacturing processes, and our marketing strategy to make use of overseas markets effectively, we'll likely be able to achieve good financial results this year thanks to our world-class upgrading facilities." nw

S-Oil CEO Samir A. Tubayyeb.