Dutch court to rule on gas output in part of Groningen field
By Bloomberg
A Dutch court will rule Friday on natural gas production at a cluster of the Groningen field, Europe’s biggest, after residents in the northernmost Dutch province requested reduced extraction because of the risk of tremors.
A judge in the Council of State’s Administrative Jurisdiction Division will make a preliminary ruling on production at the Eemskanaal cluster at 10 a.m. Amsterdam time. The court heard the case on May 21 and a previous request to halt output, which accounted for 5 percent of Groningen’s total production from January to April, was rejected April 14.
The Netherlands, the European Union’s biggest gas producer, is reducing output at Groningen after earthquakes damaged buildings. Economy Minister Henk Kamp has said the nation will decide in July on whether to further cut this year’s target production. The court in The Hague last month suspended output at Loppersum, another cluster.
Groningen is operated by Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, or NAM, the Royal Dutch Shell Plc-Exxon Mobil Corp. joint venture that owns 60 percent of the field. Output fell 34 percent to 11.57 billion cubic meters (0.4 trillion cubic feet) in the four months from January to April compared with a year earlier, according to NAM data. That’s about 53 percent of the Netherlands’ total output, Bloomberg calculations using data from grid operator Gasunie Transport Services BV show.
Eemskanaal’s output was 0.54 billion cubic meters in the first four months and the area has an annual cap of 2 billion cubic meters, according to NAM. Production for the remainder of the year will probably be 0.5 billion cubic meters, Hans Besselink, a lawyer for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said during the May 21 hearing.
The court will on Sept. 10 and if necessary also Sept. 11 hear more than 40 appeals and make a final judgment in the Groningen gas extraction case, Council of State said Thursday.
NAM apologized for the earthquakes and their impact on Groningen inhabitants in April. The latest tremor in the province, on Wednesday, measured 2.2 on Richter scale and was related to gas extraction from Groningen.
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