AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A Dutch watchdog said on Tuesday that gas production from Groningen field remained a safety threat, as Europe races to find other sources of the fuel to wean itself off Russian supplies in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Dutch government has been winding down Groningen for years because production triggers earthquakes in the area and it plans to cease output entirely by October. But the government has not ruled out a change course in an emergency.
“Groningen will only be as safe as the rest of the Netherlands once the gas production has been stopped and the houses that need it have been reinforced,” said Theodor Kockelkoren, inspector general of the regulator, the State Supervisor of Mines (SSM).
Groningen will produce 7.6 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in the year that runs to October 2022.
Earthquakes have damaged buildings in the region and the government began swiftly reducing output in 2015 after a scathing report on the threat posed by production to public health by the country’s Safety Board.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Feb. 25 his government still planned to end production this year but did not rule out a change of tack: “You can never completely, completely, completely exclude something 100%.”
SSM challenged reports “in various media” that Groningen production could safely be increased to 12 bcm a year, saying this was based on earlier recommendations by the watchdog which had since been revised.
Groningen newpaper Dagblad van het Noorden on Friday published a survey among 3,000 residents that found a majority would support increasing output to 12 bcm a year if the Netherlands stopped importing Russian gas.
Rutte’s government is due to make a decision on 2022-2023 production on April 1.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Edmund Blair)
