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Netherlands To Shut Down Europe’s Largest Gas Field
Netherlands To Shut Down Europe’s Largest Gas Field
The Dutch government plans to close the Groningen gas field this year despite Europe’s precarious supply position. Groningen is the largest gas field in Europe.
The field is dangerous, a government official from the Hague told the Financial Times, and the government has no plans to boost production from it.
“We won’t open up more because of the safety issues,” Hans Vijbrief told the FT. “It is politically totally unviable. But apart from that, I’m not going to do it because it means that you increase the chances of earthquakes, which I don’t want to be responsible for.”
Production from Groningen has been curtailed substantially, and there were plans in place to phase out production altogether because of increased seismic activity in the vicinity of the field even before the energy crisis began in 2021.
As gas prices began to climb in the autumn of 2021 and then took off in the spring of 2022, some began speculating that the Netherlands could keep the field operating to contribute to filling the gap in gas supply left by Russian pipeline deliveries.
The Dutch government was skeptical about that from the start and instead suggested production be extended, although at a minimum rate of some 2.8 billion cu m. Now, this, too, is being reconsidered.
“It’s very, very simple: everybody who has some knowledge of earthquake danger tells me that it’s really very dangerous to keep on producing there. I’m quite convinced it’s wise to close it down,” Vijbrief told the FT.
Since the 1980s, the FT notes, there have been some 100 earthquakes annually around Groningen, resulting in more than 150,000 claims for property damage. The operator of the field, a Shell-Exxon joint venture, was ordered to start reducing output in 2013 with a view to shutting the field down eventually.
Dutch Plan To Boost Gas Output At Earthquake-Prone Site Sparks Anger
Dutch Plan To Boost Gas Output At Earthquake-Prone Site Sparks Anger
Residents in the Groningen area in the Netherlands have voiced their anger at a plan by the Dutch government to potentially double this year production from the Groningen gas field, which has been hit by earthquakes in the past.
The Dutch government said on Thursday that it might need more gas to be pumped at Groningen, once Europe’s biggest gas field, which the Netherlands has pledged to phase out this decade after frequent earthquakes in the past damaged homes in the area.
After years of debates and measures to curb production at the field, the Dutch government decided in 2018 that output at Groningen would be terminated by 2030, with a reduction by two-thirds until 2021-2022 and another cut after that. The authorities had already limited production from the field because of the earthquakes, but they decided in 2018 that the risks and costs were no longer acceptable.
Now the government says that more gas needs to be extracted from the Groningen gas field in 2022 to ensure supply because of long-term export contracts with Germany and a delay in the commissioning of a facility in the Netherlands to treat imported gas for use for Dutch households.
The government is expected to make a final decision by April 1 on how much gas will be extracted from Groningen this year.
“I realize it really is a disappointment for people in the quake region that it has indeed proved necessary to extract more gas,” Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Stef Blok said on Friday, as carried by Associated Press.
The Groningen Earth Movement, a group of residents who have suffered damages from earthquakes, slammed the plan for more gas extraction at the field.
The Ministry of economic affairs and climate policy is playing with the safety of people in Groningen, the movement said, adding that “a government should not and cannot treat the safety of its citizens so lightly.”
