Back to black: advanced oil recovery techniques brings back abandoned wells

Relatively unknown beyond the Netherlands, the small village of Schoonebeek occupies a special place in Dutch hearts. As the site of the country’s first oil discovery, this quiet, rural community, nestling on the German border, has become something of a monument to the Dutch oil industry.

Local shops sell souvenir mugs, T-shirts and even cakes celebrating the village’s links with the black stuff. And if you ask nicely, the man in the post office will switch on the ’nodding donkey’ that takes pride of place in the village square.

It may seem an unlikely tourist destination, but Schoonebeek’s significance shouldn’t be understated. Between 1947 and 1996, the village was at the centre of one of the largest onshore oil fields in Europe; a facility that helped fuel the growth of the Netherlands’ biggest industry and one of the world’s largest companies: Shell.

Despite only recovering around 20 per cent of the oil, the oil field’s operator, NAM (a joint venture between Shell and Exxonmobil), ceased production from the site in 1996 when the high cost of extracting the remaining highly viscous oil simply couldn’t be justified given the easier pickings elsewhere.