Conditions for Groningen closure met: Dutch minister

The Netherlands has met all four conditions set out in 2018 for closing the Groningen gas field, Dutch state secretary for mining Hans Vijlbrief said today.

This means that it will be possible to close the giant low-calorie field on 1 October, provided imports are sufficient, Vijlbrief said. The government will make its decision in June, he said.

Groningen is on standby for the 2022-23 gas year, with output to be limited to 3.2bn m³, Dutch system operator GTS said today — the minimum necessary to keep all production sites working.

GTS previously recommended keeping Groningen on standby for the 2023-24 gas year too, because of the risk of high-calorie supply shortages.

Vijlbrief emphasised that he wanted to close the field as soon as possible, either this October or next depending on the availability of high-calorie gas imports, which is "far from certain", he said.

The conversion of the Grijpskerk storage site to store low-calorie gas rather than high-calorie supply is one condition for Groningen's closure that the Netherlands has fulfilled. A second is a "significant" reduction in low-calorie gas exports to neighbouring countries. On top of that, five of the nine major low-calorie gas consumers in the Netherlands have switched to high-calorie supply, the minister said. Finally, a new gas quality conversion plant at Zuidbroek is scheduled to be fully operational by October at the latest, although the project's completion has been pushed back several times.

GTS reiterated today in a letter to Vijlbrief its recommendation of keeping Groningen on standby for the upcoming gas year, arguing that the "complete loss of imports of Russian gas and the uncertainty in the international gas and energy markets" mean that the Netherlands' security of supply "cannot be sufficiently guaranteed" without the back-up availability of Groningen. Closing Groningen in October this year would be a "setback for all concerned", GTS warned.

By Brendan A'Hearn