If NAM sells its small gas fields, the same obligations continue to apply to the new owner. This concerns, among other things, compensation for consequential damage and the clearing of the production locations concerned if gas extraction stops at a certain moment.
NAM announced last autumn that it wanted to sell the small gas fields. One of the parts that will go into a separate company to be sold later is the field in Schoonebeek and the surrounding gas fields and infrastructure in the east of the Netherlands.
Due to the imminent closure of the Groningen field, oil and gas extraction in the Netherlands is no longer the priority of NAM shareholders Shell and ExxonMobil. As a result, NAM says that it has too little space to invest in the fields, so they are going up for sale.
There are fourteen small gas fields in the municipality of Westerkwartier. Together these account for approximately 11 billion cubic meters of gas. The fields may be of interest to companies that have specialized in emptying the ‘leftovers’ of gas that can still be extracted. But the same rules and guidelines apply to them as now for the NAM.
According to Professor Mulder, it is still a legal issue to what extent liability for damage caused in the past is transferred. ‘But this liability will in any case play a role in negotiations about the value of the sale of the production permits,’ says Mulder.
According to the professor, it is unlikely that the government will take care of the production itself. The municipality of Westerkwartier wants the government to have a more important share in the gas production of the small fields, because it can contribute to the safety and interests of the residents.
‘The State must continue to take its responsibility for the safety and protection of the unique living environment and interests of residents,’ says Alderman Hielke Westra (CDA). ‘Even when another party takes over small gas fields.’