Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. It is partly about NAM Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij BV., a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil each owning a 50% share in the company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and the consequential potential bill for untold billions in damages. The article discusses the similarity with recent earthquake activity in Oklahoma arising from shale oil and gas extraction.
Begins
Do the ‘shale farmers’ go after the Groningers?
Jeroen Groot • Economics & Politics
The bottom trembles and walls tear in Oklahoma. Yes, that sounds familiar, and the cause is also: oil and gas extraction. Is a ‘Groningen scenario’ taking place in the US, including shutting down the taps? Then it quickly ends with low oil prices.
The damage will be viewed in November 2011 at a St. Gregory’s University building in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Photo: Hollandse Hoogte / AP | Associated Press
On Friday it was hit again in the US state of Oklahoma: an earthquake of 3.6 on the Richter scale. As far as known, this quake did not cause any damage, but that was different on Sunday 4 March. Then the places Enid and Breckenridge, 150 kilometers north of Oklahoma City, were hit twice in rapid succession by a quake with a force of 4.2.
‘Houses with cracks in the walls, doors that can no longer open or close. People reacted quite startled, ‘Mike Honigsberg tells us by telephone from Enid. Honigsberg is director of the Garfield County Emergency Management, a kind of crisis center for calamities such as large fires and nowadays also earthquakes. These are, as in Groningen, associated with the extraction of oil and gas.
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