CAPITAL: Amsterdam

MONETARY UNIT: Guilder

REFINING CAPACITY: 1,187,842 b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: 55,000 b/d

OIL RESERVES: 113 million bbl

GAS RESERVES: 61,306 bcf

Nederlandse Aardo Maatschappij BV (NAM) let contract to Stork Engineers & Contractors BV to develop as many as five natural gas fields in the western Netherlands.

The contract was valued at $15 million during the initial 5 years if all five of the so-called Green fields were developed. The first field to be developed was to be Gaag II, near Maasland.

Elf Petroland BV disclosed two gas discoveries on North Sea Blocks K1a and K4a off the Netherlands. K1-3 discovery had a potential production rate of about 9.84 MMcfd from Lower Permian sands. The K4-10 discovery in Carboniferous strata had potential to produce 4.48 MMcfd of gas. Development options were being studied.

NAM won a court battle to drill for gas at five sites in the ecologically sensitive Waddenzee, a region of shallow waters and mud flats off the northern coast.

Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. said Dutch offshore operators had slashed oil and gas production costs by 25% in real terms since the peak for operating costs in 1993. It added that Dutch operating costs would increase slightly through 2002.

It said in 1997 costs were $4.30/bbl of oil equivalent, compared with $4.90/bbl off Norway, $3.50/bbl off Denmark, and $3.70/bbl for U.K. Southern Gas basin fields.

Costs for onshore fields were about $1.30/bbl in 1997, down $0.53/bbl from peak 1988-90 levels.

Wood Mackenzie said, "All onshore Netherlands production is so dominated by NAM`s giant low-cost Groningen gas field that higher-cost fields, such as the relatively expensive Rijswijk concession fields, have only a small impact upon overall costs."

Entrade gas trading, a joint venture of two Dutch regional utilities that planned to merge in early 1998 (Provinciale Noordbrabantse Energie-Mij. BV and Mij. voor Elektricitiet en Gas Limburg) contracted to buy 700 million cu m/year of gas over 8 years from Centrica plc.

Deliveries were to begin when the U.K.-Belgium Interconnector gas export pipeline started operation in October 1998.

Centrica signed a deal with Inkoopcombinatie Elsta VOF, Terneuzen, for delivery of 1 billion cu m of gas for 8 years through the Interconnector pipeline link. Elsta is a cogeneration project.

Processing activity

Shell Nederland Raffinaderij B.V. completed a $1.7 billion upgrade at its 374,000 b/d refinery in Pernis.

The project, called PER+, centered around the addition of Shell Gasification Hydrogen Process and hydrocracking units.

The expansion increased the complexity of Shell`s Dutch refinery and enabled it to convert low-value streams to useful products such as cleaner-burning transportation fuels, hydrogen, and electricity.

Shell Nederland Chemie BV started construction of a rigid polyols plant at its Pernis facility. The 45,000-ton/year, $30 million plant was to come on stream in 1998.

The plant`s output will be used primarily for a range of insulation applications.

MONtell Polyolefins BV commissioned a specialty polymers manufacturing plant at Moerdijk. The plant had capacity to produce 150,000 metric tons/year of Catalloy proprietary process resins. It uses propylene and ethylene feedstock from the adjacent Shell Chemicals BV complex.

DSM NV, Netherlands, planned to spend $496 million to become Europe`s largest polyolefins producer, with total capacity of 2.5 million tons/year by 2001.

DSM will acquire polyolefins operations from Germany`s Vestolen GmbH, including 150,000 tons/year of high density polyethylene capacity and 200,000 tons/year of polypropylene capacity.

DSM also will build a 300,000-ton/year gas-phase, low density polyethylene plant and a 250,000-ton/year polypropylene plant at Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Debottlenecking and other upgrading are also planned at the Geleen complex.