The Netherlands does not have a strategic reserve of natural gas. “We do have a three-month supply of oil, but we don’t have anything like that for gas,” Grégoire says. “Suppose we were to be without gas supply for a long period of time, then we would have no supplies, because those storage facilities are intended for the winter.”
Gasunie is strongly in favor of such a stock. But where do you get that gas from? Here and there it is suggested to pump gas from the closed Groningen field again. Something that is of course technically possible. But for Gasunie that is not an option. “That field will remain closed. We are not going to complain about that.”
Earlier this month, Gasunie advised investigating the possibility of using so-called cushion gas in an emergency. This is gas that is normally not extracted and remains in a gas storage facility to create enough pressure to pump gas. “That cushion gas is located under the storage facilities in Norg and Grijpskerk, but this still needs to be worked out.”
In short, this means: if there is a dire need but no stock, you could extract that cushion gas. The gas storage has room for 6 billion cubic meters of gas. Below that lies a reservoir with 15 billion cubic meters of cushion gas.
In any case, the State Supervision of Mines was critical of that wish for Groningen. According to the regulator, the risk of earthquakes is becoming unacceptably high.
The municipality of Noordenveld and the province of Drenthe also previously stated that they were not in favor of extracting cushion gas.
