The gas tap at two production locations in the Groningen field has been completely turned off again. That writes outgoing State Secretary Hans Vijlbrief (Mining, D66) in a letter to the House of Representatives on Wednesday. On Monday, the government temporarily put the Spitsbergen and Scheemderzwaag locations on the pilot light to guarantee energy supply in the Netherlands during the freezing cold, if the largest gas storage facility in the Netherlands in Norg in Drenthe fails.
Gas extraction in the Groningen field has been stopped since October 1 last year. However, the cabinet can decide until October 1, 2024 to put the eleven existing production locations back on the pilot light. In practice, this happens when the average temperature over a 24-hour period drops below -6.5 degrees Celsius. This was the case on Tuesday. Because the average daily temperature over the next fourteen days will not drop below -6.5 degrees Celsius according to forecasts by the weather institute KNMI, the fields can now be removed from the pilot light again.
The decision to temporarily open the gas tap again led to dissatisfaction in Groningen, where gas extraction in recent decades has caused collapsed houses and earthquake damage. The Groningen Soil Movement (GBB) stated on X that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate will open the pilot light “at the slightest sign”.
Vijlbrief wrote on Wednesday that he found it “annoying” that the cabinet decision had led to unrest. Because the gas storage in Norg functioned properly, the gas tap did not have to be opened further and only a “minimal quantity” of gas of 0.008 billion cubic meters was extracted. According to Vijlbrief, the decision to only put the pilot light on the locations in cold weather has prevented gas from being extracted throughout the winter. Otherwise, it would have involved 3.2 billion cubic meters of gas that had been extracted from the ground at the eleven production locations.