No increase in gas extraction from the Groningen field, but concerns over security of supply

Gasunie Transport Services (GTS) has as its statutory duty to advise the Dutch government every year on how much gas will have to be extracted from the Groningen field. After the estimate made in January, when the expectation was that 7.6 bcm would be needed from the Groningen gas field to secure supply, we have conducted new analyses and updates. Thanks to the mild winter, a favourable Wobbe index for imported H-gas, and the one-off postponement of maintenance work on nitrogen installations until the summer, a total of 4.6 bcm will need to be extracted when using the Grijpskerk gas storage facility to store L-gas and filling the Norg storage facility with 4 bcm of gas. State Secretary Vijlbrief informed Dutch parliament of these figures through the letter linked to below.

However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created concerns over the availability of sufficient volumes of H-gas, which is a key assumption in calculations of the required volume of Groningen gas. GTS is currently in close talks with the Dutch government on security of supply in light of the current war in Ukraine and the resolve to reduce dependency on Russian gas. In light of these developments, GTS advises to use the gas storage facilities to the maximum degree possible: Use the Grijpskerk storage facility for H-gas storage as early as next winter and fill the Norg storage facility with 6 bcm of gas. Given that this would mean that Grijpskerk would not have to be filled with pseudo-G-gas, 3.9 bcm of gas from the Groningen field would suffice. It would, however, push back the first possible closure date for the Groningen field by one year.

In addition, there are other measures that can be taken to secure supply for next winter. The Minister for Climate and Energy Policy, Rob Jetten, is currently exploring, together with Gasunie, ways to increase the Netherlands’ LNG import capacity by expanding Gate terminal’s capacity and using a floating LNG terminal in the port of Eemshaven. This would create 5 to 8 bcm of additional capacity in Rotterdam and 4 bcm in Eemshaven, thus doubling the Netherlands’ LNG capacity.

Advices from GTS about the Groningenfield production can be found here.

Letter on the Groningenfield production gas year 2021-2022
Letter on security of supply next winter and beyond