The Influence of Natural Gas on the Dutch Economy

Abstract

In dealing with the economic problems that existed after World War II, the Dutch have never entertained many illusions over the role that could be played by indigenous mineral resources. There were some limited possibilities for increasing the exploitation of the coal seams in the extreme South and also for recovering salt, marl and gravel on an extremely modest scale. For the rest the Dutch had to find their strengths in other qualities and that they did so successfully is described elsewhere in this volume. This does not alter the fact that exploratory borings for oil and gas, suspended during the war, were revived. Shell and Esso worked together in this in the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (Netherlands’ Petroleum Company) henceforth NAM. Success was modest until, barely twenty years ago, productive natural gas reserves were struck under the mainland in the Northern province of Groningen. On the basis of this discovery near the village of Slochteren, it was estimated that 50 billion m3 of natural gas were present. Although the various successful borings in the region of Slochteren all yielded gas of the same composition as the first Slochteren discovery and at the same pressure of 350 atm., it was not until 1963 that it was realised that these borings comprised the same field. This conclusion meant that in 1963 the recoverable quantity of gas was already being estimated at 1,100 billion m3. It is interesting to note that the concessions were granted on May 30th 1963 and that it was only shortly afterwards that the first realistic estimates of the extent of the reserves were made. By 1965 the official estimates had already climbed to around 1,500 billion m3 and two years later they stood at 2,200 billion m3. Roughly speaking it could be said that not until eight years after the first successful boring was a proper insight gained into the extent of the reserves. If, upto 1967, one could say that there was a continuous, very large, underestimation of the natural gas available (after that date was a period in which the expected level of reserves in the Slochteren field increased little), the share that could be considered as proven reserves continued to increase.