Annual Report 2025
Twenty years ago, gas market liberalization began. GasTerra played an important role in developing the liquid gas market and, partly as a result of this, the TTF became the most important gas trading hub in Europe. Where security of supply was formerly guaranteed through long-term contracts, we’ve seen the trading hub play an increasingly important role in securing volumes.
Because of the earthquake problems in Groningen, the decision was made in 2018 to accelerate the closure of the Groningen Field and this was followed, a year later, by the decision to wind down GasTerra.
When the Ukraine crisis erupted and gas prices in Europa rose sharply due to volume shortages, these were absorbed thanks to the rapid expansion of the import capacity for LNG and the well-functioning gas market. However, we did see that the filling obligations for storage facilities, in combination with an adequate supply in the market, led to the expectation that sufficient gas would be available for the winter of 2025/2026. In 2025, this led to the situation where there was little difference between summer and winter prices. Indeed, summer prices were regularly higher than winter prices. This made filling the storage facilities commercially unattractive.
Higher energy consumption costs in the Netherlands led, broadly speaking, to an unfavourable international competitive position for Dutch industry. Although the improved supply in 2025 did lead to lower gas prices, we concluded that this was insufficient to improve the competitive position. The consequences of gas extraction in Groningen were still being felt in 2025. The recent earthquake in Zeerijp demonstrates that these consequences persist even after the closure of the Groningen field.
CEO Annie Krist about 2025:
"On 1 October 2025, we embarked on our final gas year. A special milestone in the year in which we also celebrated our 20th anniversary. The time has come when, in many areas, we look back more than forward. The year 2025 was the last year in which GasTerra filled the Grijpskerk and Norg storage facilities. We will deliver these storage facilities empty on 1 April 2026. This marks the end of our contribution to security of supply of natural gas in the Netherlands. In 2025, we further downsized our organization.
We said goodbye to many colleagues. We embark on the last year of GasTerra with mixed feelings.Together we are committed to phasing out the facilities carefully and sharing and transferring our knowledge and experience."
