Europe’s largest gas field has been closed due to seismic risk

From next Sunday, the Netherlands will stop extracting methane from the Groningen natural gas storage facility, the largest in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world, due to seismic risk.

According to the Efe agency, the government had already chosen to dismantle the barrier in the north of the country due to the secondary effects caused by gas extractions that weakened the region’s subsoil, triggering several earthquakes that hit houses and buildings, until the point at which making some of them uninhabitable.

Although the deposit is now operating at minimum levels, it still contained 2,800 million cubic meters of methane, one of the largest gas reserves in Europe.

Operation at the site is managed by the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), a joint company of the Dutch Shell and the North American ExxonMobil.

The controversial natural gas field of Groningen – also known as Slochteren, after the name of a nearby town – was discovered in 1959.

In August 2021, an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale in the city of Huizinge marked a turning point: authorities could no longer ignore the seismic risk caused by gas extraction.

In 2018, liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte expressed the Dutch government’s wish to stop gas extraction in Groningen.

Last week, the outgoing Council of Ministers confirmed today, October 1, as the deadline for extraction.

According to the Belgian daily Le Soir, the end of production will have no impact on supplies in Belgium.

However, the barrier’s operation can be reactivated “temporarily and to a limited extent” in the event of an intense cold wave in winter (if temperatures of -6.5ºC are recorded for several days in a row) or, for example, in the event of damage to storage facilities.

According to agency Efe, all installations will be dismantled from October 1, 2024.

The Groningen deposit was an important source of supply for much of Western Europe and had a major impact on Dutch public finances since the start of production.

However, hundreds of earthquakes, with magnitudes up to 3.6 on the Richter scale, caused damage in the area, prompting authorities to order its closure.

The process of ending extraction was also gradual, as radical closure could also cause an increase in seismic phenomena.