EurOil: Dutch Senate clears law on Groningen's permanent closure

The Dutch Senate on April 17 approved a law on the permanent closure of the giant Groningen gas field, in line with a government pledge that production should never be resumed because of seismic risks.

Normal gas extraction at Groningen was stopped in October, after its production was wound down over a number of years. It is the largest gas field in Europe outside of Russia, and at its height produced nearly 80bn cubic metres per year of gas in the 1970s. But production over the decades was found to have caused damage to thousands of buildings.

In the year ending October 2023, output was capped at only 2.8 bcm per year. Though normal operations ended last autumn, the field was made available for limited flow during a cold snap in recent months. But the law proposed by the government and now passed by the Senate means the field must be shut down entirely by October 1 of this year.

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