The bell on the shop door rings. A young man steps in. – Good afternoon. Can I help you or do you just want to poke around? – Thank you. I already know. – You tell me… – I want enough people and resources to almost double the capacity of a terminal for liquefied natural gas, LNG, in Rotterdam. Just double that too of the planned production of offshore wind in the North Sea by 2030. I would also like to have more gas in stock. Would like such a floating LNG terminal. For the Eemshaven.
– That’s it for you?
– We may also need price guarantees for a sufficient supply of gas for the coming winter. But that is not yet certain. Can I call on you at that time?
– I don’t have everything in stock. I’m sending that floating LNG terminal your way. Exmar in Antwerp has another one for rent. You’re in luck. It has been in high demand lately. Do you want to pin?
– New. Just send the bill. That’s possible right?
– It’ll be all right, Mr. Jetten.
Also read: ‘Groningen’ gas will now come from a ship in the Eemshaven
One hoards sunflower oil. The Rutte IV cabinet is hoarding gas and renewable energy. That shopping list is just the beginning. The government will have to switch from income support for victims to investments for a new energy economy.
That gets uncomfortable. Is any energy-intensive sector still viable with increased prices? The first reflex of politicians, companies and trade unions is: support. Look at the past. The government tried to rescue textile production, shipbuilding (RSV) and aircraft construction (Fokker) with support. It did not work. Elsewhere, companies could do better or cheaper. Fertilizers and aluminum are useful products, but their production fits better in regions with cheaper energy. The question also applies to greenhouse horticulture.
Investments in the new energy economy require capital. Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) sometimes compares the transformation with the reconstruction after 1945. The government played a guiding role in this. Do (left-)liberal ministers want that too? It’s starting to look like it.
Two state-owned companies have to fix it. Tennet will connect even more wind turbines at sea to the Dutch and North German power grids. Gasunie is there to secure the gas supply and to build new infrastructure. They will become Dutch state-owned companies with an international radius of action. The government has been talking with Germany for some time about a major German investment in Tennet. It’s time now.
You can see Gasunie eager. Making the gas pipelines suitable for hydrogen. Managing the floating LNG terminal. Gasunie is building an LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel, near Hamburg. The German partner is the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
Indeed, that is a public sector bank that helped finance post-war German reconstruction. The Netherlands lacks such a bank. It was able to rely on American capital, the Marshall Aid, for reconstruction. Now the Netherlands itself is brimming with capital. There are public sector banks (BNG, Waterschapsbank), private banks, pension funds, insurers and financiers with public money (Invest-NL, National Growth Fund). But they wait.
The cabinet is introducing its own Climate Fund, worth 35 billion euros. What is more obvious than cooperation between private and public capital, as in Brunsbüttel? Stop the fragmentation. Don’t lose time. Otherwise, that shopping list will become another problem.
Menno Tamminga writes here every Tuesday about corporate policy and economics.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 22, 2022