Planned funding in the Wadden Sea
Borkum natural gas has yet to be distributed
4/15/2022 8:04 am
The Lower Saxony state government is actually against natural gas production in front of Borkum. She changes her mind after the Russian attack on Ukraine. How the valuable raw material of the German-Dutch joint project is to be distributed has not yet been decided.
In the case of a natural gas platform planned off the North Sea island of Borkum, it is still unclear how the natural gas produced could be divided between Germany and the Netherlands. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs in Hanover and the Dutch company One-Dyas communicate this on request.
According to the company, the platform should be able to pump around two billion cubic meters of gas annually. The volume is expected to decrease over the years due to the expected fall in demand. The amount of natural gas consumed annually in Germany is around 90 billion cubic meters.
One-Dyas plans to produce natural gas from a field discovered in 2017 between the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and Borkum and also to set up a platform at sea. The area is close to the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park.
The platform is to be located in the Dutch territorial waters, around 500 meters from German sovereign waters and around 20 kilometers from Borkum. Half of the estimated 60 billion cubic meters of recoverable natural gas is located on German territory.
The red-black state government had initially positioned itself against the project last summer. In view of the uncertainties in the energy supply caused by the war in Ukraine, she moved away from this position and advocated a reassessment. A final decision has not yet been made in Lower Saxony. Environmental groups, the green state parliament opposition and neighboring North Sea islands fear environmental damage from the project.