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Groningen gas: 80% of the homes in this village are being demolished

June 14, 2021 – By Pierre Felcenloben

In Groningen, work is continuing to clear up the damage caused by extracting millions of cubic metres of gas from under the province. For the residents of the village of Overschild, this means demolishing and rebuilding almost every building. 

Thousands of people have been affected by damage to their homes due to subsidence in the region, which sits above Europe’s largest gas field and has been exploited by NAM, a joint venture set up by Shell and Esso, since 1963. read more

Director of the Dutch gas concern (NAM), Jan Atema, said he regrets the statements he made about the reinforcement operation in the Groningen earthquake area. The operation was set to reinforce homes that were damaged due to fracking in the earthquake zone in Groningen.

NAM will also continue to pay for the reinforcement of homes, although a majority of the costs as covered by the state.

The Dutch gas concern claimed it has scaled down on its production in Groningen compared to previous years. “We only produce a fraction of what we used to. What happens then is that you get less risk, fewer earthquakes and, therefore, less risk of collapse”, the director said. read more

April 1, 2021

The company in charge of gas extraction in Groningen is disputing thousands of claims for damages by homeowners because it says the government’s criteria are too strict.

The NAM, a joint venture set up by Shell and Esso in 1947 to exploit the Netherlands’ natural resources, said the risk to safety had been exaggerated ‘by a factor of one to ten thousand’ in some cases.

It said the vibration limits used to assess if damage to homes was the result of earthquakes were too low and also queried the costs of processing the claims. read more

No evidence of NAM criminal intent in Groningen gas scandal, public prosecutor says

MARCH 26, 2021

The public prosecution department said on Friday it had not found evidence that the lives of people living in parts of Groningen hit by subsidence-related earthquakes were actually at risk.

And despite an ‘intensive investigation’ there is no evidence that NAM, the company charged with extracting natural gas from under the province, had acted in a ‘deliberately criminal way’, the department said in a statement. read more

Nam calls for Groningen gas field closure in 2022

31 JULY 2020

The Netherlands’ Groningen low-calorie gas field could be closed completely in 2022, while keeping it on stand-by afterwards would require substantial production to be maintained, operator Nam has said.

There will be “no role for Groningen after 2022” as it is highly unlikely that it would be needed to guarantee security of supply then, Nam said in response to a consultation on the field’s draft output plan for the 2020-21 gas year.

The Dutch economy ministry’s plan foresees that Groningen output would halt from about mid-2022 when a new quality conversion facility in Zuidbroek is expected to become operational, significantly increasing the scope to convert high-calorie gas into low-calorie supply. The field is to remain on stand-by afterwards until at least about mid-2025 to serve as a back-up that could help meet northwest European low-calorie demand in situations of exceptionally strong consumption or disruptions to other sources of supply. read more

Energy venture NAM says it does not want to use Groningen gas field in 2022

AMSTERDAM, July 30 (Reuters) – NAM, a venture of Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil that operates gas fields in the Netherlands, said on Thursday it did not want to use the Groningen gas field in 2022 and had asked the government to approve this.

The government, which has been ordering production cuts at the field due to seismic risks in the region, had asked NAM to keep the field available as a resource in 2022 in case of a cold snap, NAM said, adding that it was opposing this request. read more

The third small earthquake in a week struck the province of Groningen early Sunday morning. The quake registered a magnitude of 2.3, and its epicenter was in Startenhuizen, meteorological agency KNMI said.

It struck seconds before 4:08 a.m., and was followed by an aftershock registering 0.9 about four minutes later, data from the agency showed. The earthquake was determined to be induced by human activity, a fairly common occurrence in the region due to decades of natural gas extraction. read more

Translation of an FD article published today

How Shell disappeared from politics in The Hague

Shell CEO Van Beurden recently hinted at a possible departure of the multinational from the Netherlands. A signal that, according to those involved, can also be interpreted as an ultimate rapprochement attempt. Because the dialogue between politicians and Shell is at a dead end.

Ulko Jonker

In brief

• Shell is considering leaving the Netherlands, partly because of the dividend tax that did not disappear.
• GroenLinks now wants to impose a moving fine on companies that go abroad.
• The multinational is said to have fallen into political isolation because of gas extraction in Groningen.

Jesse Klaver took the doctrine of debt and fine to a new level last week. The GroenLinks captain believes that Unilever and Shell should first ‘settle with Dutch society’ before they can move their headquarters. GroenLinks MP Bart Snels himself calls his initiative ‘Brutal’. It is also ominous, companies say. read more

There was an earthquake in Loppersum in Groningen on Tuesday afternoon. The quake measured 2.7 on the Richter scale, making it the strongest earthquake to hit the province so far this year. The municipality of Loppersum called residents to report damage to the Groningen Mining Damage Institute.

The earthquake happened at around 5:15 p.m., according to meteorological institute KNMI. People reported feeling the quake in Loppersum, the city of Groningen, Leermens, Middelstum and Zeerijp, according to RTV Nooord. Before Wednesday, the strongest earthquake of the year measured 2.5 at Zijldijk on May 2. The strongest earthquake ever to hit Groningen was in Huizinge in 2012 and measured 3.6, according to NOS. read more

Dutch gas production at Groningen set to drop to 9.3 bcm next year

AMSTERDAM, June 19 (Reuters) – Gas production at the vast Groningen field in the Netherlands is set to drop to 9.3 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the year through October 2021, the Dutch gas sector regulator said on Friday.

Production at the field, operated by a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, is capped at 11.8 bcm for the year ending October 2020, although the government has said that level will probably not be reached. read more

120,000 home owners in Groningen to get compensation for quake property value cut

(Information added by John Donovan: NAM is the Shell/Exxon Joint Venture company responsible along with the Dutch government for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and the consequential bill for dealing with 120,000 damaged residences.)

May 27, 2020

Some 120,000 home owners in Groningen province are entitled to financial compensation because the value of their property has gone down due to the earthquakes, the institute set up to assess the damage says. read more

English translation of an article published 23 Feb 2020 by the Dutch Financial Times (FD)

Dutch industry funded climate skeptic Frits Böttcher

From our editor

According to FTM, Shell is one of the companies that Böttcher financed. Photo: ANP

In brief

• Climate skeptic Frits Böttcher received at least one million guilders fom the Dutch business community in the 1990s.
• At the request of donors, he wrote activist papers in which he denied the existence of the greenhouse effect.
• Partly due to his work, there was little support for sustainable climate policy at the end of the last decade.

Between 1989 and 1998, Frits Böttcher received at least one million guilders (€ 450,000) from 24 Dutch companies, including Shell, NAM, AkzoNobel and DSM. With that money he set up an international network of climate skeptics. At the request of the donors, he also wrote activist papers and articles in which he denied the existence of the greenhouse effect. This is the result of research by Follow the Money (FTM) and the Authentic Journalism Platform (PAJ), who have access to the personal archive of Böttcher, who died in 2008. read more

NAM gas production at Groningen, Europes largest gas field, will end in 2022

The Ministry of Economic Affairs ignored signals and reports that there were many problems with Centrum Veilig Wonen (CVW) – the company responsible for reinforcing homes in Groningen against fracking earthquakes – for years. The then National Coordinator for Groningen Hans Alders warned the Ministry that the company was not complying with agreements, and that Groningen residents were the victims of this, in the summer of 2017. But the Ministry claims that it only became aware of the problems in May 2019, RTV Noord reports based on an email exchange between Alders and the Ministry, and statements from Minister Eric Wiebes and his Ministry. read more

Natural gas output at Europe’s largest onshore gas field, the Netherlands’ Groningen, continued to fall sharply in December following the Dutch government’s tightening of the production quota, with volumes down 43% year on year.

The rapidly declining output at the field has eaten away at Dutch gas stocks, which have now fallen below Gas Year 2018 levels and are well below the European average.

A production cap has been put in place to prevent earthquakes linked to gas extraction at Groningen and the Dutch government plans to phase out gas extraction at the field completely by mid-2022. read more

Below is a translation of a news brief issued today 7 Nov 2019 – by NAM, the Shell/Exxon Joint Venture company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field. And also for the consequential potential bill for untold billions to deal with damaged residences like the example in the photograph. Someone forget to mention in the news brief the shocking reason why the Dutch government ordered the closure. The word “earthquake” does not appear anywhere.

TRANSLATION

Close gas field Groningen started in Ten Post

It seems only a signature, but it marks the start of the closure of the Groningen field. At the end of October, NAM transferred the Ten Post gas extraction site to Meuva.  This company will start cleaning up the location around 11 November. read more