The Use of Gas in the Netherlands after the Year 2000

This chapter describes the use of gas in the Netherlands after the year 2000. The energy system in the Netherlands will highly diversify in the coming years, both with respect to the kind of energy carriers, and to their applications. The expectations of new major gas strikes in the Netherlands or on the Netherlands part of the Continental Shelf have been considerably lowered since the second half of the sixties. It is believed it will be possible to obtain contracts to import liquefied natural gas, or pipeline gas, albeit prices will have risen because of the distance between the Netherlands and the regions of origin of the gas. In the future, power stations, and larger industries using natural gas to fire their boilers will look for cheaper fuels on their own initiative. A straight shift from gas to oil cannot be a solution, not only because of the increase of dependence on oil-producing countries, but also because of the limited world oil reserves, and other constraints that are expected to squeeze the oil supply in the coming decades.