Big names in the gas investigation: Rutte and Van Beurden

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  Reinalda Start

  research editor

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  Helen Ekker

  Climate and Energy editor

After weeks of all kinds of people being questioned by ministries and multinationals Shell and ExxonMobil, today it’s the turn of the senior leaders: Prime Minister Rutte and Shell CEO Ben van Beurden must appear for the parliamentary inquiry into the natural gas extraction in Groningen. During the interrogations, an attempt is made to uncover how the public-private partnership in Groningen worked.

In essence, these are three parties: the Dutch state and the multinationals Shell and ExxonMobil. The overwhelming majority of the proceeds always went to the state, but companies also made good profits from it. Natural gas under the Groningen soil is owned by the American Exxon and British Shell.

Since gas extraction became rather problematic about ten years ago after the earthquake near Huizinge in 2012, Rutte and Van Beurden have been key players in the Groningen dossier. Rutte has been prime minister all this time and Van Beurden became CEO of Shell in early 2014. Under his leadership, Shell went fully British last year and moved its headquarters to London. Both men talked regularly when there was disagreement over the extraction of the gas.

During the interrogations, only fragments of information on the position of the two gentlemen emerged. Every year there was a dinner of the oil company CEOs with the prime minister. Marjan van Loon, CEO of Shell Netherlands, said the gas issue was discussed “in a broad sense” during these kinds of meetings.

Last week ExxonMobil’s Rolf de Jong talked about a meeting in 2017 between Rutte, Van Beurden and his colleague at Exxon Darren Woods. The conversation followed the announcement of an upcoming criminal case against the multinationals. For fear of actually being punishable, the companies then insisted on a conversation with Rutte. Their aim was to give the state responsibility for the extraction.

There was a lot of discussion about public-private partnerships during the survey. Among other things, on the question of how it was possible that a record amount of gas was pumped in the infamous 2013, as experts had warned that the situation in Groningen was becoming dangerous. It has led to violent earthquakes and many reports of damage.

The commission of inquiry wants to find out: who knew that so much gas was being extracted at that time, and who was ultimately responsible. Former Finance Minister Dijsselbloem said during his interrogation that he was unaware of it and had asked the Council of Ministers for clarification. He sighed: “I hope you unmask who did it.”

At the time, the former CEO of Shell-Netherlands, Dick Benschop, was however not in favor of a production restriction. He indicated that he found the security risk in Groningen acceptable, even after urgent advice to reduce gas extraction as quickly as possible for safety reasons. Benschop now acknowledges that high gas production in 2013 had a “devastating influence” on support for gas extraction and that it shouldn’t have happened.

It is interesting to know how far the involvement of Rutte and Van Beurden has gone. Especially in the years when gas extraction has only declined slightly and safety in Groningen was not paramount. Since both men have been in office for a long time, they are important to the reconstruction the committee is doing.

The state and “the oils” worked together in the so-called Gasgebouw; not a real building, but the name of the ten-year collaboration. Former minister Wiebes said during his interrogation that it no longer exists in its old form: “I don’t think there is any part of the Gasgebouw that is still standing.”

The fruitful collaboration between the State and Shell and ExxonMobil has thus come to an end; arbitration was even invoked to separate major financial interests.