The German power company EWE plans to reduce its use of gas from the gas Groningen field (Netherlands) by 1.7 bcm/year and will instead convert high-calorific Russian or Norwegian gas (H-gas) to the low-calorific gas (L-gas) required for its infrastructures.
The gas extraction from the Groningen gas field in Europe was progressively reduced from 42.5 bcm in 2014 to 33 bcm in 2015, 27 bcm in 2016 and 21.6 bcm in 2017. As a result of the last Government announcement to cap it to around 20 bcm/year by 2021, the gas production from the field will have almost halved in 4 years. However, the highest court in the Netherlands rejected the latest production cap plan in November 2017 and ordered a new decision within 12 months on how much gas can be extracted onsite, where drilling operations have triggered minor earthquakes. In early February 2018, the Dutch government announced that gas production from this field would be cut by 44% to 12 bcm/year and ordered large Dutch industrial users to phase out the usage of Groningen natural gas by 2022.