I'm delighted to join you all here today.

Ever since 1913, our company, featuring the Texaco brand, has had a steadfast presence in Brazil.

Today, we remain every bit as committed to providing quality energy products and services and helping the nations of the region to develop their energy resources.

I want to thank Eivald Røren and João Carlos de Luca for all they've done to make this World Petroleum Congress a memorable one. And I also want to thank them for inviting me to speak on such an important topic. It is also an honor to share this plenary session with Chakib Khalil.

The "challenge of change" is front and center not only for the energy industry but for peoples and nations in every part of the world. Almost everywhere you look, existing institutions, assumptions and practices are being challenged.

After a decade of singing the praises of globalization we all know that a "smaller" world is not necessarily a better one and not automatically a more prosperous one. · Changes come quickly at the start of this new century: global terrorism, · financial contagion, · technological innovation and · political upheaval.

The ripple effects are felt far and wide and are too complex to be easily defined or predicted.

Changes of this magnitude pose an unprecedented challenge for all of us. Today, I'd like to address one approach to helping navigate these turbulent waters - - a principle that I believe is equally effective for all businesses, not just those in our industry: and that is partnership - - partnership of different kinds: with governments, host communities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other companies.

Partnership, more and more, is a basic business principle that is central to any successful strategy.

And may be one of the best means we have, perhaps the only means, to make our businesses more profitable while making our world more stable and secure.

I have just described partnership as a principle, but I'm less concerned with how we describe partnership than how we practice it.

Certainly, the "practice of partnership" was a central theme at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The appropriate role of business in addressing global challenges was widely debated. As Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "We are not asking corporations to do BLOCK 1 - - PLENARIES 47

GLOBAL ENERGY RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES: MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE

something different from their normal business; we are asking them to do their normal business differently." The discussion of the importance of partnership for our sector could not be more timely.

The next 10 years will bring changes to our industry as dramatic as any decade in our history. That is true not only of our industry but of the countries where we operate - countries that span from North to So

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