Gazprom will stop supplying natural gas to GasTerra from Tuesday. The Dutch gas trader, owned by Shell, Esso Nederland and the Dutch state, among others, refuses to pay in rubles as the Russians want.
Greenhouse Horticulture Netherlands warns that from Tuesday about half of Dutch horticulturists will already have to deal with higher prices, because they work with daily prices for gas. Due to the disappearance of Russian gas, the daily prices will be higher, the organization estimates. This concerns about 1500 greenhouse horticulturists.
Next summer
The organization is not yet concerned for next summer. „There is now sufficient stock. We do not expect greenhouse horticulture to run into problems this summer,” a spokeswoman for the horticultural organization responds. After October 1, when GasTerra’s current contract with Gazprom for the supply of 2 billion cubic meters of gas expires, Greenhouse Horticulture Netherlands expects GasTerra to have a back-up. The organization has not yet heard of this. GasTerra itself announced on Monday that it had purchased the amount of gas from the Gazprom contract on the gas market in Amsterdam. GasTerra did not want to renew the current expiring contract.
VNO-NCW says it is investigating the possible consequences of the disappearance of Russian gas with the members and the government. According to VNO-NCW, Gazprom’s move will put pressure on the security of gas supply in the future. “It underlines that the Netherlands must continue to work on alternatives, for example by extracting gas from small fields and using liquefied natural gas (LNG) and accelerating sustainability,” according to the employers’ organization.
Greenhouse horticulture in the Netherlands has been asking the cabinet for solutions to the sharply increased energy prices in the sector for some time, but has not heard anything about this to date. For example, projects to improve sustainability are in trouble due to the sharp rise in prices, the organization warned earlier. “We are worried about the fall. We hope that The Hague will do something and are still waiting for a good solution.