Goodbye Groningen gas: the government signs the definitive stop to extraction

This afternoon many inhabitants of Groningen are breathing a sigh of relief: the law that definitively regulates extraction from the Groningen gas field is symbolically signed by the resigning State Secretary Vijlbrief. Over the last 65 years, the gas field has gone from a gold mine for the Netherlands to a headache dossier.

In 1947 the oil companies Shell and Esso founded Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), a company exploring for oil and gas in the Netherlands. In May 1959 the company made its greatest discovery: under the village of Slochteren, in the province of Groningen, the largest gas bubble in Europe, approximately 2,800 billion cubic meters, was discovered. NAM obtained a perpetual mining concession from the state for this field, NOS says.

The whole country switched to using natural gas from the early 1960s, for industry, electricity production, cooking and heating. The Dutch government became very rich: most of the (converted) over 400 billion euros in revenues since the discovery began in 1959 go to the state. With this money, infrastructure works and a considerable part of the welfare state were financed, says NOS.

The downside of gas extraction only becomes clear decades later: in December 1986 the earth trembles in Assen – a consequence of extraction in the smaller Eleveld gas field. In the following years there are hundreds of other earthquakes in the northern area of ​​the Netherlands caused by the extraction of all that gas: the ground subsides, pressure is created on the faults under the gas field. With a record number of earthquakes and citizens on a war footing, in 2018 the government decided to end the extraction.

In 2019, a parliamentary inquiry into gas extraction begins, and especially into the question of why so much gas has been extracted for so long, despite the large number of earthquakes. The main conclusion of the commission, a few years later: The interests of Groningers have been systematically ignored, earning money has always been more important than the safety of residents.

The “security of supply” of gas was considered the most important by the government and gas field operators: this was always put above all else and the outside world was kept “consciously” in the dark, according to the Commission.

Following the House, the Senate also accepted the closure by 1 October 2024. Vijlbrief symbolically signed the law that must regulate the switch off today in Kolham.