The Netherlands has announced its approval of plans to extract natural gas, along with Germany, from offshore wells slated to be drilled close to protected ecosystems in the North Sea.

The move follows Russia's decision to cut off gas supplies to the Netherlands after it refused to pay for the fossil fuel in rubles as Moscow demanded.

Why are Germany and the Netherlands opening new gas projects?

The new gas wells will provide between 2 billion and 4 billion cubic meters of gas a year, according to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The ministry greenlighted the cross-border project on Wednesday, and the German state of Lower Saxony is expected to authorize the project soon.

The project had been held up because of opposition in Germany, but the Dutch ministry said on Wednesday that Lower Saxony "is now making a different decision because of the war in Ukraine."

Both Germany and the Netherlands are scrambling to secure supplies of natural gas after Russia announced it would cut off Dutch firm GasTerra.

Germany has continued to buy Russian gas after Russia's attack on Ukraine but is also seeking to diversify sources in case of disruption.

Russia provides around 15% of the Netherlands' gas supplies, but Germany gets around 55% of its total gas supplies from Russia, according to the Agora Energiewende think tank in Germany.

When will gas start to flow?

The plan is for the taps to turn on in 2024, once all authorizations are supplied. But environmentalists have raised concerns over the ecosystems around the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and its German neighbor Borkum, 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the east.

A Dutch consortium said it wants to build a platform in the shallow waters of the Wadden Sea south of the islands with an accompanying pipeline bringing the gas ashore.

The region is home to tidal flats and wetlands and is a protected ecosystem and a biodiversity hotspot. 

The Dutch government said it was taking steps including moving the project further away from an oyster farm, not discharging drilling fluid into the sea, and passing wastewater produced during gas production through a filter.

The Dutch ministry's statement did not include an estimate of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the new drilling.

er/sms (dpa, AFP)