Dutch Court Hands Cuadrilla a Setback
Cuadrilla Resources has hit a roadblock in its plans to drill for shale gas in Holland.
A court in Den Bosch has ruled that Boxtel town council wrongly granted permission to the UK based explorer to conduct test drilling for shale gas.
The court said that the granting of a temporary exemption from the zoning by the council was based on activities concluding within a five year period.
However, the court ruled that it was likely that operations at the site would last for longer than five years if drilling was successful and natural gas production was commenced.
The action against Cuadrilla was brought to the court by local residents and Rabobank, which had built a new data centre close to the proposed drilling site.
Cuadrilla representative Frank de Boer said that ruling would cause "a few months delay.”
"Of course the court's decision is a set back but we will get together with the city of Boxtel to see how we may solve this. The judge did not state that these test drillings are undesirable," de Boer continued.
Boxtel city councillor Pieter Van de Wiel commented: " In any case we did not make any promise to Cuadrilla. It is not that we want to push this through at any cost. In the days to come we will thoroughly study the courts decision and of course we will take the concerns of the people of Boxtel very seriously."
Cuadrilla, which is partnering with Energie Beheer Netherlands (EBN), a natural gas exploration, production, transportation and sale company owned by the Dutch Government, had planned to commence drilling at the site in early 2012, to be followed by another exploratory hole in Haaren.
Despite local opposition and resistance from provincial authorities in Noord Brabant, the Dutch Government appears to be firmly in the unconventional gas camp.
A spokesperson for Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch minister responsible, commented about the national government’s position on the development of shale gas this summer:
"The national interest prevails. The licenses for gas exploration and production are at a national level issue. Although a municipality can delay, but not stop."
The independent research organization TNO estimates the recoverable amount of shale gas in the Netherlands to range from in 2,400 to 11,000 billion cubic meters. By comparison, the volume of producible gas in Slochteren, amounts to about 2.8 trillion cubic meters.