Extraction from the largest natural gas field in the EU will close in six days
The giant Groningen gas field will shut down completely on October 1, 2023, the Council of Ministers decided at its meeting on Friday, definitively sealing the fate of the field after a draft decision proposed in June.
The Council also decided that all mining sites in Groningen will be demolished in October 2024, ensuring that the mines can never be restarted after that date.
Today was the last chance for government officials to raise doubts over a draft decision to halt all gas production from the controversial field.
Until the demolition date, however, the field will be operational in case of extreme necessity. “Only in particular situations, such as extreme cold, will it be possible to extract gas temporarily and to a limited extent next winter,” the Council wrote, adding that only in these circumstances will it be possible to temporarily start up one or more production sites at production levels pilot light – when “very intense cold is expected”.
The Council gave an example of consecutive days of temperatures below -6.5°C occurring when there is another emergency, such as a failure of a gas storage facility.
The country decided to phase out gas extraction in the province a couple of years ago due to earthquakes that were thought to be associated with natural gas extraction. But rising gas prices following the energy crisis of the last two winters have led to speculation that the province could keep the fields operating for a while longer. Now a law requires the demolition of the camps starting next October.
The province has recorded more than a thousand earthquakes in the last two decades, while the government has raked in the equivalent of 360 billion euros today from gas revenues. Another 66 billion euros went to oil and gas companies, Shell and Exxon. In 2013, Shell and Exxon were told they needed to begin reducing production and prepare to shut down the field completely.
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The article Extraction from the EU's largest natural gas deposit will close in six days comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/tra-sei-giorni-chiudera-lestrazione-dal-maggior-giacimento-di-gas-naturale-della-ue/ on Mon, 25 Sep 2023 08:00:06 +0000.