NiQuan Energy will have to wait until Monday to learn the fate of its application for an injunction against the Government to compel it to resume its natural gas supply.
High Court Judge Kevin Ramcharan reserved his decision on the application after hearing submissions from the company, the Trinidad and Tobago Upstream Downstream Energy Operations Company Limited (TTUDEOCL), and the Office of the Attorney General, yesterday morning.
Guardian Media made a request to access the hearing based on public interest in the case but it was denied by Justice Ramcharan, who noted that the matter was being heard in chamber.
TTUDEOCL is a special purpose company in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries and was set up specifically to negotiate NiQuan’s gas agreement.
NiQuan’s contract with the TTUDEOCL is for the sum of 31 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d), or less than one per cent (approximately 0.8 per cent) of T&T’s daily gas supply. TTUDEOCL sources natural gas from the National Gas Company (NGC).
NiQuan is alleging that TTUDEOCL has stopped supplying it with the natural gas it needs to run its operations, which is a breach of contract.
For its part, TTUCEOCL said it stopped supplying NiQuan with gas after the company accrued a debt of US$19 million, which remains unpaid. As a result, TTUDEOCL remains indebted to the NGC for non-payment.
NiQuan claims the company stands to lose hundreds of millions in investments if it is not supplied with natural gas.
The company filed injunctive proceedings, amongst other reliefs, asking that the court order TTUDEOCL to supply gas to NiQuan on a guaranteed basis and not subject to availability based on the terms and conditions of the gas supply contract.
NiQuan’s move against one state company comes after another state agency—the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA)—started investigating it for a July 15 accident at the plant, which led to the death of 35-year-old Massy Energy Engineered Solutions Limited (MEES) employee Allanlane Ramkissoon.
MEES was conducting maintenance on the plant at the time.
Ramkisson’s death negatively impacted NiQuan’s cash flow.
On July 30, the Sunday Guardian exclusively reported that NiQuan was over US$250 million (TT$1.7 billion) in debt and that it was struggling to meet payments to the tune of millions owed to contractors, which include Junior Sammy and MEES.
NiQuan was set to refinance its bonds in the sum of US$300 million (TT$2 billion) by July 31 but the accident at the plant set it back.
The T&T Guardian understands that the company’s founder and chief visionary officer Ainsley Gill saw legal action as his only recourse to rescue the project.
Gill, a former US-based lobbyist in Washington DC under the Patrick Manning administration, bought and invested in the abandoned plant with the goal to turn it into the Western Hemisphere’s first gas-to-liquids plant.
NiQuan raised money on the international bond market, loans, and sums from local investors, which include Republic Bank Limited, RBC Trust (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited, Beacon Insurance Company, Firstline Securities, Prime Capital Limited, JMMB Securities Limited, Waterloo Capital Advisors, KCL Capital Market Brokers Limited, Inshallah Investments, Farm Chem Engineering Management Limited, GM Homes Limited, M&J Services Limited, Central Finance Facility Cooperative Society of Trinidad and Tobago Limited, Petrotrin and the Washington DC registered NiQuan Energy LLC.
NiQuan was represented by Stephen Singh, Vivek Lakhan-Joseph and Raphael Morton-Gittens. TTUDEOCL was represented by Deborah Peake, SC, Ravi Heffes-Doon, and Alana Bissessar, while Russell Martineau, SC, Raquel Le Blanc, Murvani Ojah Maharaj and Lianne Thomas represented the AG’s Office.
