After more than six decades of market-dominating gas extraction in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands, production facilities there are now to be decommissioned. State Secretary for Extractive Industries Hans Vijlbrief symbolically signed the corresponding law on Friday in the village of Kolham in the north of the country. Almost 65 years ago, a huge natural gas deposit was discovered in a meadow near the village, leading to the Netherlands’ rise as the largest gas producer in Europe after Norway. More than 2,300 billion cubic metres were extracted in total. This earned the state more…