German court stops N05-A gas field construction again

A German court has annulled the permit for a seafloor cable necessary for the planned gas drilling platform N05-A in the Dutch and German North Sea on environmental grounds.

Lower Saxony state water authority NLWKN had upheld an earlier permit decision on 19 July against a complaint by environmental organisation DUH, which had argued that stone reefs discovered in the area deserved additional environmental protection. The administrative court at Oldenburg annulled the permit today after DUH had sued NLWKN, saying that the permit was "likely to be unlawful upon summary examination of the factual and legal situation". NLWKN had ordered a compensation payment without sufficiently weighing up conservation interests against other interests, the court said.

The underwater power cable is intended to connect the gas extraction platform in the Dutch North Sea with a nearby wind farm on the German side of the border. DUH has repeatedly called on the Lower Saxony authorities to withdraw the permit on the grounds of new information for the environmental impact assessment.

The N05-A gas project has been met with continuous opposition from environmental groups as well as local municipal authorities. They had achieved a temporary stop to construction in early June at a Dutch court, which was subsequently lifted. Greenpeace protested at the construction site on 31 July, before operator firm ONE-Dyas achieved an injunction at a Dutch court to stop Greenpeace from obstructing the installation.

ONE-Dyas "has received all necessary permits to start gas extraction" from the Dutch side, the firm told Argus in June. But no permit is in place to extract any gas from the German side of the gas field as yet. And any further delay would probably move the timeline for first gas substantially back from December this year, ONE-Dyas said previously.

The Dutch government granted an extraction and construction permit for the N05-A field in 2022. The field could produce about 2bn m³/yr in its initial phase, ONE-Dyas said previously.

NLWKN or ONE-Dyas can escalate the decision to the next higher court for an appeal, the court said.

By Till Stehr