A dis­pute be­tween lo­cal en­er­gy com­pa­ny Mo­ra Ven Hold­ings Lim­it­ed and Span­ish en­er­gy gi­ant Rep­sol over crude oil sup­ply has led to the T&T com­pa­ny shut­ting down pro­duc­tion on its oil plat­form.

In a state­ment, Mo­ra Ven, par­ent com­pa­ny of Mo­ra Oil Ven­tures Lim­it­ed (MOVL), said it had been sup­ply­ing crude to Rep­sol for some time and re­cent­ly the arrange­ment had be­come a month-to-month con­tract. "There is a dis­pute as to the amount of crude that is be­ing sup­plied. In re­cent weeks Rep­sol have in­di­cat­ed that the lev­el of crude be­ing sup­plied is no more than 1.5 per cent of the amount with the Mo­ra cer­ti­fied me­ter states," the com­pa­ny said.

"MOVL has tak­en steps to ver­i­fy its pro­duc­tion through me­ter prov­ing and sam­pling that abides by the API Stan­dard for me­ter­ing through tur­bine me­ters."

Mo­ra Ven said it had tak­en "the painful de­ci­sion" to stop pro­duc­tion on the plat­form af­ter months of talks with Rep­sol "and their re­cent re­fusal to have a third par­ty ver­i­fy their method.The com­pa­ny claimed there is a huge dis­par­i­ty be­tween what it is pro­duc­ing and the amount which the Span­ish en­er­gy com­pa­ny says its re­ceives.

Mo­ra Ven said the shut down of the pro­duc­tion means a loss of jobs and the mat­ter will be tak­en else­where to be re­solved.Chair­man and CEO of Mo­ra Ven George Nicholas III said: "Mo­ra can no longer af­ford to be bul­lied and ig­nored by this for­eign mega com­pa­ny."He ac­cused Rep­sol of us­ing "their cor­po­rate mus­cle for too long to try and bul­ly Mo­ra in­to sub­mis­sion."

"We will not stand for this any longer," he said. "Ac­cord­ing­ly, the board haas made the painful de­ci­sion to shut-in pro­duc­tion on the plat­form, with the re­sul­tant loss of rev­enue and the loss of tax dol­lars for the Trea­sury. Nico­las said the com­pa­ny will seek a hear­ing and in­ves­ti­gate a new sup­ply line.

Mo­ra Ven Hold­ings said it will con­tin­ue to in­vest in and de­vel­ops its re­new­able en­er­gy di­vi­sion which was al­ready poinsed to over­take the oil field in its con­tri­bu­tion to the com­pa­ny's prof­its.

Mo­ra Ven, an in­de­pen­dent oil and gas com­pa­ny, pro­duces and sells oil and gas from off­shore and ex­plores for and pro­duces hy­dro­car­bons from its field off the South-East coast of Trinidad.

It al­so man­u­fac­tures, sells, in­stalls, and re­pairs so­lar wa­ter heaters and pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems. Rep­sol has been op­er­at­ing in T&T since 1995 and has made sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor through its own off­shore op­er­a­tions, as well as its 30 per cent stake in the as­sets of bpTT. Up to press time, of­fi­cials of Rep­sol could not be reached for com­ment on the claims made by Mo­ra Ven.