In addition, the company has applied for a permit to expand the work at Eesveen in Overijsselse, which is located between Steenwijk and Frederiksoord. There are currently two wells in use there. Vermilion has applied for a permit for four more wells.
Vermilion also wants to install an acid gas installation there. The gas extracted there cannot simply be used. First the acid must be filtered out. “We want to do that on location.”
Those involved find the additional plans worrying. “The procedure surrounding the plans at Vledder is still ongoing and we are already being overtaken on all sides by these new plans,” responds Eiting of Milieudefensie Westerveld.
The province fears a ‘salami tactic’. “In recent years, new extractions or expansions of existing extractions have been permitted several times. Interested parties may therefore have the impression that this is a salami tactic, in which major effects can occur little by little. This increases unrest, because local residents start to wonder what the next development will be. This also applies to the province itself,” the province writes.
Vermilion does not rule out that more plans for gas extraction are in the pipeline. “We will probably still need gas in the coming decades. We see even more opportunities in Drenthe and Friesland,” says spokesperson Sape Jan Terpstra. “But we don’t start 50 to 60 percent of the small fields that we find ourselves. It has to be done safely, and if we estimate that it cannot be done safely, we don’t start it.”
He further says that these small gas fields should not be compared with gas extraction in Groningen. “It cannot be ruled out that earthquakes will occur. You can never rule it out. But the fear that this will become a second Groningen is really unfounded. All those small gas fields do not even account for 1 or 2 percent of the gas extraction from Groningen.”