About Wigersma & Sikkema

Company profile of Wigersma & Sikkema

Wigersma & Sikkema was founded in 1921 in the city of Leeuwarden by the two Frisian gentlemen who form the name of the company. The company started its life as a technical trading company. After the big natural gas reserve of Slochteren was discovered in the Netherlands in 1957 the gas grid started to be built. Wigersma & Sikkema participated as a gas pressure regulating station (GPRS) builder in this development. This is how the company became involved more and more in the natural gas business. It continued to build gas pressure regulating stations until the year 2000. This activity was then stopped as the company wanted to focus on higher value added businesses it had developed in the meantime.

In the 1960’s the production started of gas pressure regulators. At the time these were regulators of Fritz Von Gahlen, which were produced by Wigersma & Sikkema under a licence agreement. In 1975 the Von Gahlen company went bankrupt and evolved into Medenus. The co-operation with Medenus continues until today as Wigersma & Sikkema distributes the Medenus spring operated regulators in the Dutch market. Mid-seventies the first own regulator was developed, the RS250S. This was a pilot operated gas pressure regulator, aimed specifically at the Dutch gas distribution market. The successor product, RS300S, was developed in 1996. Thousands of RS300S regulators have been installed by the gas networks in the Dutch gas distribution market. The latest development is the RS350S.  The DN50 version of this pilot operated gas pressure regulator has an innovative insert that integrates the valve, the valve seat and roller diaphragm into one easy-to-replace module.

The development of the most innovative product of Wigersma & Sikkema started in the year 1999 when Enexis (one of the leading Dutch gas distribution network companies) asked for an offer of thousands of 3-way valves. When we learned that these valves were going to be used for inspections of gas pressure regulating stations, we developed a better solution for this: the PLEXOR® system couplings.

With the use of these system couplings, safe connections can be made to gas pressure regulating stations, without the risk of any gas escaping. Further development resulted in the unique PLEXOR® inspection system, which consists of the PLEXOR® inspection device, the CONNEXION software suite and the patented PLEXOR® system couplings. This system is now used by more than 70 gas distribution companies around the world for functional inspections of their gas pressure regulating stations.

In the eighties Wigersma & Sikkema became the Dutch distributor for the Danish company Kamstrup. This led to the acquisitions of Wigersma & Sikkema by Kamstrup in 1992.  The name of the company was changed to Kamstrup BV in 1999 and it would remain that way until 2014. Kamstrup is a Danish multinational which is active in Electricity, Water and Heat metering. The first electronic volume converter series, Multigas, was developed at the end of the eighties based upon a Kamstrup heat meter. It was followed by the UNIGAS series at the end of the nineties. It’s successor product, the UNIGAS 300 was completely developed in Doesburg in 2008. This product is now the clear market leader in the Dutch market and has an increasing following abroad.

In 2014 Kamstrup decided to divest its gas business and that’s when the company gained back its independence and returned to the original name under which it was founded: Wigersma & Sikkema BV. The company develops, produces and markets gas pressure regulators, inspection systems for gas pressure regulating stations, instruments for gas volume conversion and systems for remote reading.