ExxonMobil announced on 6 November that it is partnering with two Singapore universities to open a Singapore Energy Center in 2019 to focus on new discoveries and significant improvements to technologies that could improve energy production and enhance energy efficiency and other efforts to mitigate the risk of climate change.
ExxonMobil signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore to become a founding member of the proposed center—the company’s first such research and development partnership outside the United States.
“Human ingenuity and the advancement of technology are critical to expanding supplies of the fuels and products that drive economies and improve standards of living around the world,” said Bruce March, president of ExxonMobil Engineering and Research Company. “With the rapidly growing demand for sustainable, low-carbon energy options in Asia Pacific markets, the importance of increasing our research and development capacity in the region to explore emerging technologies that could eventually help meet this demand has never been greater.”
As a founding member, ExxonMobil will support the center’s wide range of early-stage research projects. Company researchers and scientists will also collaborate with students and faculty at the two universities, as well as other industry contributors, once the center opens in early 2019.
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the National University of Singapore, ranked by Quacquarelli Symonds as the top two universities in Asia and recognized as leading research institutions, will colead the Singapore Energy Center. Both universities plan to invite other industry leading companies to join the center, fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations between academia and industry.