Due to years of “unprecedented system failure”, successive cabinets and the oil and gas companies – NAM, Shell and ExxonMobil – have created “a disastrous situation” in Groningen. The responsible parties have “systematically” ignored the security interests of duped Groningen residents in the gas extraction area for years. This sometimes happened unintentionally, but regularly also consciously and to this day. Responsible politicians and officials have “seriously failed” to protect public interests, have “systematically ignored the suffering of residents”, have acted “negligently”, “reprehensible”, and “particularly bad” at key moments. The government’s decision not to immediately reduce gas extraction in 2013 was a “gross violation of the interests of Groningen residents”.
This is the conclusion of the parliamentary committee of inquiry after two years of research and 69 public hearings about gas extraction in Groningen in a damning report. The House of Representatives has been informed time and time again “carelessly, incompletely or incorrectly”. Chairman of the committee and member of the House of Representatives Tom van der Lee (GroenLinks) will hand over the almost two thousand page report ‘Groningers above gas’ to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Vera Bergkamp (D66) in Zeerijp in Groningen on Friday. Only invited guests, mainly Groningen victims, were able to attend the presentation of the report at farm De Diek’n in Zeerijp.
The extraction of natural gas from Groningen was so successful and profitable for the State and the oil companies for sixty years that, according to the committee, they hardly paid attention to the long-term risks, despite repeated external warnings. According to the committee, the State and the oil companies have “breached their duties” and have “systematically ignored the interests of Groningen residents”.
Only after the regulator repeatedly warned the State Supervision of Mines (SodM) about the earthquakes in the area and the associated safety risks, and after the Council of State obliged the Minister of Economic Affairs three times to extract less gas and to put pressure on society Groningen increased, the cabinet ‘reluctantly’ decided to phase out gas extraction.
Read also: Even when the farm was already leaning on 63 props, the cabinet turned on the gas tap further
If the problems with earthquakes had been taken seriously from the start, a lot of misery could have been avoided, the committee concludes. After the quake near Huizinge in 2012, with a magnitude of 3.6 the strongest to date, gas extraction could have been reduced “considerably”. But an advice from the regulator SodM in early 2013 to reduce gas extraction “as soon as realistically possible” was ignored. Just like various technical reports from the gas world that confirmed that gas extraction could be reduced without people getting cold feet and the ‘security of supply’ being jeopardized. In 2013, gas extraction even reached a record high.
The committee describes the current situation as ‘disastrous’, whereby not everyone realizes that there are few other situations in the Netherlands with such a large number of victims.
What conclusions does the committee of inquiry draw about the main players?
The top officials
The gas extraction in Groningen was accompanied by “close” cooperation between the private oil and gas companies (NAM and its shareholders Shell and ExxonMobil), state-owned company EBN and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, according to the report. Top officials of the ministry sat as government representatives in the so-called Gas Building, where decisions were taken about gas extraction. In that gas building there was an ‘inward-looking culture’ of an ‘old boys network’ with shared dinners, where the interests of ‘the gas building’ were mainly taken into account and not the safety of Groningen residents. In addition, the NAM was constantly aware of “the development of ideas” within the ministry and the gas company contributed to answering parliamentary questions until 2017.
Also read the timeline: Gas extraction in Groningen over the years
Because the top officials took part in the consultations as government representatives, they were able to take crucial decisions and top officials withheld important documents from the minister, such as the technical options for reducing gas extraction after the Huizinge quake. The committee concludes that “civil servants deliberately did not bring the various lines together” and thus they “failed to properly perform their public task”.
The ministers
Despite the fact that after the quake at Huizinge in 2012, Minister Henk Kamp (Economic Affairs, VVD) did not see all the crucial information from his officials, the committee “leads to think” that the minister did not question his officials sharply. After all: the call to extract less gas was audible from Groningen and in the House of Representatives. The Council of Ministers rejected this. That is “a gross violation of the interests of Groningen residents”.
The approach of his successor, Minister Eric Wiebes (Economic Affairs and Climate, VVD), who, unlike Kamp in 2018, did decide to turn off the gas tap in the future, also turned out “bad”. He decided to pause the strengthening operation – in which tens of thousands of houses are being renovated so that people can safely leave their homes in the event of a major earthquake – despite signals from the region not to do so. This eventually led to major delays.
A striking conclusion drawn by the committee is not that Wiebes himself had thought of turning off the gas tap, but that this happened after the oil companies gave an opening for this. And that is thanks to the pressure exerted by the interest group Groninger Soil Movement by going to criminal court. In 2017, the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal decided that the Public Prosecution Service should start a criminal investigation into the NAM. That led to a shock at Shell and ExxonMobil. This was a tipping point for these companies. Then they wanted the government to take over legal responsibility for gas extraction.
The prime minister
The committee concludes that Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) “has long underestimated the seriousness and urgency of the problem”, and has not intervened. With working visits and repeated apologies, the prime minister aroused expectations among Groningen residents, but has not made any “essential” difference to them. Since the earthquake near Huizinge in 2012, Rutte has been continuously at the helm of the cabinet.
Although all important decision-making on gas extraction in Groningen has taken place in the Council of Ministers since 2013, and responsibility is therefore borne across the cabinet, Rutte only realized in 2017 how big the problem is in Groningen. That is 5.5 years after the quake near Huizinge, the strongest to date. According to the committee, Rutte has raised ‘expectations’ with his working visits, apologies and cabinet-wide responsibility, but he has not brought about any ‘essential change in favor of the people of Groningen’.
The oil companies
Gas extraction company the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), a joint venture of Shell and ExxonMobil, has been guided solely by financial interests, the committee concludes. After the quake at Huizinge, NAM and both of its shareholders were constantly “resisting” the lower gas production from the Groningen field, while the regulator insisted on this. Shell speaks of a “swamp without anchors” if it were known that a lower gas extraction level would be safer, according to a memo from a ‘storyline dinner‘ between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the oil companies in 2015.
Even now, the financial interests of the oil companies are still more important than those of the people of Groningen, according to the committee. The committee finds it “shocking” that the oil companies have filed a claim with the State for the non-produced gas, after it was decided in 2018 that gas extraction in Groningen will be phased out within a few years. The committee believes that the State and the oil companies have a “debt of honor” to Groningen and therefore “should pay more than what they assume so far”.
The science
The earthquake problem in Groningen has been structurally underestimated for decades, the committee concludes. In addition to the oil companies NAM, Shell and ExxonMobil, independent knowledge institutes and experts have long denied that gas extraction in Groningen leads to earthquakes. And when that recognition was there, the maximum power of the earthquakes, the influence of the Groningen clay soil and the extent of the damage caused by earthquakes were systematically underestimated.
The committee is particularly critical of the KNMI, which for years was the only independent party with knowledge about earthquakes. The KNMI estimates in a study from 2004 that the maximum strength of an earthquake in Groningen is 3.9, but the same study shows that the chance of a more severe quake is considerable. Nevertheless, from that moment on the number of 3.9 dominates. The committee finds it “reprehensible” that the number of 3.9 was used for years, while it was clear that more severe earthquakes were possible and finds it “difficult to understand” that the KNMI did not sound the alarm.
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