Eleveld gas field near Ekehaar will close in 2028. NAM announced this last night at a residents’ meeting in the village. According to the company, the field is virtually empty. Residents are happy with it, but fear that this does not make earthquakes a thing of the past.
The permit for the extraction of gas from the Eleveld field, in the triangle Ekehaar, Hooghalen and Assen, expires in 2028 and will not be extended. “We can say that with certainty. 2028 is the last year that we will produce gas,” said Rob van Eijs of NAM at the meeting where NOS was present. According to the company, there is almost no gas left in the field. This also makes it unlikely that the location will be sold on to another party.
In October, the earth shook three times in Ekehaar, the largest of which was an earthquake measuring 2.2 on the Richter scale. The earthquakes were related to gas extraction in the area. Two months after the earthquakes, about sixty residents of Ekehaar are being updated in the village hall.
“I felt one of those earthquakes strongly. I woke up with a bang,” a village resident recalls. His neighbor also felt that the earth was shaking quite a bit. Together they would like to be informed about gas extraction in the area.
Residents are happy with the NAM announcement to stop gas extraction in Eleveld, but they do not think that the problems are over. There is no ‘reverse burden of proof’ for residents around the Eleveld gas field, as is the case for residents around the Groningen gas field.
“I am confident that the gas field will close,” says a woman, “but the tremors will continue for a while. I think there is very little you can do to prevent that. That is why good damage measures must be taken. You must relieve people’s worries.”
But according to resident Hanneke Bruggeman, that is exactly the problem. “The Mining Damage Committee cannot look further back than five years, and there have been no earthquakes in the last nine years. Until those three last autumn. Over the total period of gas extraction in Eleveld, there have been fifty earthquakes. And we have here not the ‘reverse burden of proof’, as in Groningen and Northern Drenthe.
This means that if there is damage to a building in the gas extraction area, it is by definition caused by gas extraction. But this does not apply to the other areas in the Netherlands where gas is extracted. Residents with damage around the Eleveld gas field must demonstrate that they have suffered damage and it will then be investigated by the Mining Commission. “The reverse burden of proof should simply apply to the entire country.”
Fifteen damage reports were received by the Mining Damage Committee after the October earthquakes, says Margriet Drijver of this organization. But it remains to be seen whether the victims will also receive compensation. “We will go on location per building to see what has happened in the soil. We will then look at what damage we see in the house and assess whether there is a connection between the damage and the earthquake.
In any case, chairman Martijn Marree of Dorpsbelangen de Broekstreek is happy that it is now clear when gas extraction will stop. But like other residents, he still has serious concerns about the claims settlement. “And if gas extraction stops, the earthquakes probably won’t stop.”