CEO Message

Everything Is for Our Customers

- Evolution toward NICIGAS 3.0


In 1955, nearly 70 years ago, NICIGAS (the "NICIGAS Group") was founded with the mission of contributing to local communities. From then on until today, the NICIGAS Group, giving first priority to providing safe and reliable gas service, has continued to grow and evolve with the strong support from local communities, shareholders, business partners, and subcontractors, in addition to the efforts made by our employees.

 

Looking back on the past, the first turning point in the history of the NICIGAS Group was the liberalization of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LP gas) 25 years ago in 1997. Under the changing business environment in which free choice of LP gas providers became available to anyone, we were one of the pioneers to join the free competition, being firmly determined to continue to transform ourselves in order to be chosen by the members of local communities. This has become the DNA of the NICIGAS Group: We always challenge ourselves to change ourselves, putting top priority to the contribution to local communities, and liberating ourselves from common knowledge or stereotypes ("NICIGAS 1.0").

The second turning point came 11 years ago in 2011, when we tied up with OEP, a wholly owned subsidiary of JP Morgan, one of the world's leading financial services firm, to prepare for the imminent full liberalization of retail energy market. Through discussions with the said firm, the NICIGAS Group developed future plans and strategies that would cause its corporate value to skyrocket in the deregulated market. Then, the Group launched a series of partnerships with the TEPCO Group, Japan's largest energy infrastructure company, as well as cutting-edge technology ventures while creating values together with these companies. Simultaneously, the Group has evolved into an "integrated energy" business working for the good of local communities ("NICIGAS 2.0").

 

Now in 2022, the Group is approaching a third turning point. Various factors including the unprecedented crisis due to global warming, the increasing occurrence and severity of natural disasters, and the social conditions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have revealed that no consistent and stable energy supply from upstream to downstream can be taken for granted any longer.

In this drastically changing business environment, what local communities need the most is a resilient distributed energy system that can offer robust and independent energy supply even in times of disaster, presuming the use of renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), which will multiply rapidly in the future. The NICIGAS Group will take on this challenge: We will continue to reform our conventional business model of purchasing and selling gas and electricity and, assuming the bundled electricity and gas services as a de fact standard, provide distributed energy resources (DER) such as solar power generation systems, EVs as storage batteries, and hybrid water heaters to promote the transformation of regular houses into smart houses. The NICIGAS Group will thus evolve into an "energy solution business" that proposes optimal energy uses to local communities at large ("NICIGAS 3.0").

In terms of ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance), we at the NICIGAS Group will aim to achieve medium- to long-term business growth and increase corporate value through the concerted efforts of all our employees by:

(E) Proactively contributing to solving environmental issues such as global warming and decarbonization,

(S) Winning the trust of various stakeholders, including local communities, business partners, and all our employees, while recognizing diverse values, and

(G) Enhancing our governance system for transparent and sound management to strengthen the trust of shareholders and other stakeholders.

 

When the NICIGAS Group is faced with difficult social issues and stereotyped knowledge that seemingly cannot be solved or changed with conventional ideas, we will continue to transform ourselves while leveraging our DNA to tackle those challenges.

 

Everything is for our customers.

 

I hope all our stakeholders will provide the NICIGAS Group with continued support and kind advice.


Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer

Kunihiko Kashiwaya