Handelsblatt: Germany may lift the ban on gas production in the North Sea

BERLIN, 13 Oct – PRIME. Against the backdrop of the energy crisis, the German authorities may lift the ban on the extraction of shale gas and oil in the country’s coastal areas in the North Sea, prescribed in the coalition agreement, the Handelsblatt newspaper reports, citing the Ministry of Economy.

“The coalition agreement is in effect, but the current situation requires decisions that are adequate to the situation,” the ministry said at the request of Handelsblatt.

According to the coalition agreement concluded by the ruling parties, there is currently a ban on the exploitation of the shelf in the coastal waters of the Baltic and North Seas.

First of all, the lifting of the ban may affect exploration projects in the German-Dutch part of the North Sea, the newspaper notes. If the initiative, which is promoted by the federal state of Lower Saxony, is successful, the shelf will be operated jointly with the Netherlands, with which Germany shares the N05-A gas field.

The expected production volume of the field and adjacent deposits is from 4.5 to 13 billion cubic meters, and the potential of all fields in the North Sea is estimated at 60 billion cubic meters of gas, which is comparable to last year’s volume of gas transported through Nord Stream.