GasTerra is a Dutch partially state-owned company that is active in the worldwide trade and supply of

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

. It is owned by

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

(25%), ExxonMobil (25%) and the

Dutch government The politics of the Netherlands take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy, and a decentralised unitary state.''Civil service systems in Western Europe'' edited by A. J. G. M. Bekk ...

(50%). Its history dates back to 2005, when the company was created after a split-up of the

Gasunie N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie (short form: Gasunie) is a Dutch natural gas infrastructure and transportation company operating in the Netherlands and Germany. Gasunie owns the Netherlands gas transmission network with a total length of over and long ...

. Before 2005, the Gasunie was authorized to both sell and transport natural gas discovered in the Netherlands. Due to the

liberalisation Liberalization or liberalisation (British English) is a broad term that refers to the practice of making laws, systems, or opinions less severe, usually in the sense of eliminating certain government regulations or restrictions. The term is used m ...

of the European gas market, transportation and trade and supply had to be separated into independent companies. In 2005 this separation took place, creating both GasTerra and a natural gas transportation company. The last company kept the original name, Gasunie. The Netherlands has long been a net exporter of natural gas, but in recent years the national gas supply has fallen faster than demand. The turning point was in 2018, when the Netherlands became a net gas importer in that year. About 10 billion m³ was imported in 2019, mainly due to the extra import of LNG. Due to the accelerated phasing out of the extraction of Groningen natural gas, the company will have to close within a few years. Minister Eric Wiebes announced this on 7 October 2019 in a letter to the House of Representatives. Gas extraction from the Groningen field will cease in 2022, which means that GasTerra's core activity as a sales office for Groningen gas will cease. In September 2020, GasTerra announced that it would stop permanently on December 31, 2024. A social plan has been drawn up for the approximately 165 employees in which compulsory redundancies are prevented as much as possible and employees are guided to new work.

References

External links

Corporate website of GasTerra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gasterra Natural gas companies of the Netherlands Corporate spin-offs