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Skipping Stone Adds Hiroshi Okuyama as New Executive Vice President in Japan

Tokyo, Japan – October 12, 2020 – Skipping Stone, a global energy markets consulting and technology services firm, has appointed Hiroshi Okuyama as Executive Vice President to lead the company’s growing risk management services and wholesale markets practice areas. He will be engaged with both Japanese and International companies in the areas of commodity trading, futures, risk management business practices and the related growth strategies.

Mr. Okuyama has extensive experience in global commodities trading and risk management. He has held positions of increasing responsibility from trading on the commodity exchange floor in New York to ultimately the Presidency of Unicom International and US Japan joint venture proprietary trading firms with trading operations in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

As President of Unicom International, Mr. Okuyama led the company in changing and adapting their strategies and risk management practices to fit the evolving commodities markets. Upon his return to Japan in multiple leadership roles with Nissan Securities, he helped develop their international business and corporate strategies.

Working closely with John Brown, Skipping Stone’s Partner in charge of global risk management services, ETRM systems and energy technologies, Mr. Okuyama will leverage the company’s global experiences to bring best practices to the Japan market.  He will also leverage his extensive knowledge and relationships in Japan to assist Skipping Stone’s international trading clients entering the Japan energy markets.

“I’m honored that Hiroshi has agreed to join our company,” said Peter Weigand, Chairman and CEO of Skipping Stone.  “Hiroshi fits extremely well with our leadership team of former executives with global experience.”

Shuichi Kishida, Skipping Stone Japan President commented, “Adding Hiroshi’s deep experience in wholesale markets, international commodities trading and risk management to our Japan team, will reinforce our ability to serve our clients’ expanding requirements in the liberalized power and gas markets.”

Media Contact:
Skipping Stone Japan
+81 3-5521-1070

Skipping Stone US
nyoung@skippingstone.com

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International Investor U.S. Generation Performance Monitoring Service

scoville

Press Release

 

 

 

 

New Service Launched by Skipping Stone and Scoville Risk Partners

Boston, Massachusetts – June 11, 2019 – Skipping Stone, a global energy markets consulting and technology services firm, and Scoville Risk Partners, specializing in valuation, risk management and portfolio analytics in the energy and commodities sectors, announce a new U.S. generation asset monitoring service for international investors that covers all U.S. ISO wholesale power markets.

International investment in U.S. generation projects has grown dramatically over the past several years. Typically, international companies take a minority position in a generation project and invest based on expectations of a suitable rate of return using the project developer’s prospectus. The financial forecast in any prospectus will be different than actual results over the life of the project due to a variety of factors, including wholesale market price swings.

Many international investors lack expertise in the workings of US markets and struggle to explain to their boards of directors why their investment projects’ performance results differ from the initial prospectus. While generation project owners provide detailed information on performance metrics and explanations of deviations, this often doesn’t fully satisfy investors. These investors require independent verification of project performance and an analysis of key metrics to explain deviations from expected performance.

“Our generation asset monitoring service does not merely report and provide analysis of what has happened; we also explain why it happened and provide a perspective on what should have happened so international investors can understand any deviations and explain it to their boards,” explained Peter Weigand, Skipping Stone CEO. “This also helps the asset owner by avoiding tension due to their international investors not understanding how the US markets work.”

Glen Swindle, Managing Partner at Scoville added, “Our proprietary software sources performance data from the asset itself as well as complex, detailed market pricing information based on the asset location. We empower the investor with comprehensible explanations of the factors that caused any surprises or significant deviations from forecasted financial results, allowing them to raise potential issues with developers and outsourced asset managers.”

Skipping Stone and Scoville Risk Partners have decades of experience, access to all the market and pricing data and proprietary systems to calculate and track complex pricing formulas against actual market results.

About Scoville Risk Partners

Scoville Risk Partners specializes in valuation, risk management and portfolio analytics in the energy and commodities sectors, utilizing extensive commercial experience to provide a full range of outsourced analytic solutions and advisory services. Their proprietary technology solutions provide clients with efficient and accurate analysis of complex portfolios across a broad range of financial and physical assets.

Scoville’s advisory services are a combination of quantitative skills and trading experience that put the company in a unique position to assist clients in asset acquisitions, enterprise valuation and transaction structuring. Scoville’s existing client base includes investment banks and utilities, private equity firms, independent generation owners and retail energy suppliers. Learn more at https://scovilleriskpartners.com/

About Skipping Stone

Skipping Stone is an energy markets consulting firm that helps clients navigate market changes, capitalize on opportunities and manage business risks. Our services include market assessment, strategy development, strategy implementation, managed services, technology selection, technology implementation, project management, and talent management. Our sector focus areas are natural gas and power markets, demand response, technology services, renewable energy, and distributed energy resources. Our subsidiary, Capacity Center, capacitycenter.com, is the only gas pipeline capacity trading & flow data technology system in the U.S.

Headquartered in Boston, the firm has regional offices in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and London. For more information, visit SkippingStone.com or www.skippingstone.co.jp.

 

Media Contact:

Nancy Young
Skipping Stone, LLC
nyoung@skippingstone.com  
+1 (832) 279-3029

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TOCOM Launches Electricity Futures Market

Tokyo Commodity Exchange Launching Electricity Futures Market

Partners with Skipping Stone to attract U.S. Traders and Market Maker Participation

 Boston, MA – May 28, 2019 – The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) is preparing to launch its electricity futures market with an anticipated start date in September 2019 subject to approval of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The electricity futures contract is being designed for 15 forward months with East and West market clearing locations. TOCOM also has existing futures markets for precious metals, rubber, agriculture, and oil.

Japan is the third largest electricity market in the world with over 1,000 TWh of generation and is also the world’s largest LNG market importing over 83 million metric tons annually. Japan has deregulated the electricity and gas markets enabling competition to supply 87 million electricity and 25 million gas end-use customers.

Since full deregulation of the electricity market in April 2016, over 500 retail marketing companies have entered the market and about 18% of the customers have switched from utility supply to a retailer. The customer switch rate has averaged over 400,000 per month. The gas market deregulated in April 2017 with over 10% of end-use customers having already switched suppliers.

Deregulation has also spurred dramatic growth of electricity trading activity on JEPX, the physical spot market, which is now trading over 30% of Japan’s generation. Over the counter and bilateral electricity trading is also growing rapidly. Over 95% of LNG traded in Japan is currently tied to a market index, such as Japan Crude Cocktail (JCC) which is highly correlated with TOCOM’s Platts Dubai Crude Oil futures contract, which closely mimics Japan LNG pricing.

Now that there is adequate liquidity in the underlying physical markets for electricity, the launch of the electricity futures market by TOCOM is in line with Japan’s Growth Strategy to provide a trading environment where multiple energy futures contracts, such as electricity and LNG, are available in one exchange. In addition, TOCOM and the Japan Exchange Group recently announced an agreement to pursue combining their businesses.

TOCOM has partnered with Skipping Stone, a global energy markets consulting firm, to introduce their electric futures market and attract U.S. trading companies and market makers to join the TOCOM market. Skipping Stone has been active in the Japan energy markets for over five years working with retailers, trading companies, generators, utilities and technology providers. The firm has assisted 10 U.S. companies who have entered Japan’s energy markets.

“We are focusing our marketing efforts on overseas proprietary traders, who make up a large part of TOCOM’s trade volume. These efforts have resulted in increased overseas trading, which now makes up the majority of TOCOM’s customer trades,” said Takamichi Hamada, President & CEO of TOCOM.

To support the launch and attract new members, Skipping Stone is scheduling a series of June introductory and informational meetings with U.S. trading firms that Masahiro Yamashita, Head of TOCOM’s Power Market Preparatory Office will attend.

“The futures trading and energy market opportunities in Japan are extremely attractive,” said Peter Weigand, Chairman and CEO of Skipping Stone. “It’s been years since a new market has opened and none that I can recall that have Japan’s size and attributes. With retailers clamoring for hedge products, deregulated electric and gas markets with numerous futures, swaps, options, spark spreads and more trading instruments in their early stages, the profit and arbitrage opportunities don’t get much better than this.”

TOCOM offers four types of memberships. Two of the membership types are designed for foreign trading companies and do not require a business location in Japan. Foreign trading companies are also able to trade TOCOM listed products through Broker members.

For more information on the Japan energy markets and futures market or to schedule a call or visit with Mr. Yamashita, please contact Atsuyo Miller, amiller@skippingstone.com  714-316-1914 (PDT)

About Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM)
Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. (TOCOM) is Japan’s largest commodity futures exchange with a trading representing a 98% market share, and one of the most prominent exchanges in Asia. Futures and Options contracts on a variety of industrial products are traded (i.e.: gold, silver, platinum and palladium in the precious metals market; crude oil, gasoline and kerosene in the oil market; aluminum and rubber). TOCOM was established in 1984 as a result of a merger between the Tokyo Textile Exchange, founded in 1951, the Tokyo Rubber Exchange and the Tokyo Gold Exchange.

For more information about TOCOM, please visit www.tocom.or.jp

About Skipping Stone
Skipping Stone is a global energy markets consulting firm that works with clients to navigate market changes, capitalize on opportunities and manage business risks. The firm has delivered bottom line results for over 270 clients in more than 50 countries engaged in gas, electric, renewables, distributed energy and energy technologies. Consulting services include market assessment, strategy development, strategy implementation, innovation, outsourced launch services, technology services, M&A services and project management.

For more information about Skipping Stone, please visit www.skippingstone.com

Media Contact: 
Nancy Young, Director of Marketing, Skipping Stone  Nyoung@skippingstone.com  +1 (832) 279-3029

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