The highest court in the Netherlands has rejected the government plan to cap production at the Groningen gas field for the next five years and ordered a new decision within 12 months on how much gas can be extracted onsite, where drilling operations have triggered minor earthquakes. In the meanwhile, the Dutch Council of State (Raad van State) announced that the yearly output could be maintained at 21.6 bcm and would not be cut to 20.1 bcm/year.
The Dutch government lowered the production cap several times due to the small earthquakes triggered by the works performed on the site; the latest cap was announced in May 2016 and restricted the output down to 24 bcm/y starting from October 2016 until September 2021.
The gas extraction from the largest gas field in Europe was progressively reduced from 42.5 bcm in 2014 to 33 bcm in 2015 and 27 bcm in 2016. As a results of the last Government announcement, the gas production from the field will have almost halved in 4 years. The field is operated by Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), a joint venture between ExxonMobil (50%) and Shell (50%).