Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Ni­Quan En­er­gy has filed an ap­peal to com­pel the Gov­ern­ment to give it gas to op­er­ate its plant. The ap­peal was filed last Fri­day.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the US reg­is­tered com­pa­ny said through its sub­sidiary, Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Lim­it­ed that it had filed an ap­peal no­tice “seek­ing to re­verse the de­ci­sion of the High Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go to de­ny its re­quest for in­ter­im manda­to­ry and pro­hibito­ry in­junc­tions and de­clara­to­ry re­lief” to com­pel Trinidad and To­ba­go Up­stream Down­stream En­er­gy Op­er­a­tions Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (TTUDEO­CL) to sup­ply it with nat­ur­al gas.

The com­pa­ny not­ed it pre­vi­ous­ly sought in­junc­tive re­lief against the State to, among oth­er things, “pro­tect the sanc­ti­ty of the con­tract” re­quir­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide Ni­Quan with the re­quired sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas which it lost.

“The con­tract re­quires the Gov­ern­ment to sup­ply gas to Ni­Quan to main­tain pro­duc­tion at the GTL clean en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ty. Con­tract terms spec­i­fy that the gas will be sup­plied on a guar­an­teed ba­sis not sub­ject to avail­abil­i­ty of gas or cur­tail­ment, and from sources oth­er than the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

“The law­suit al­so named the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­spon­dent on be­half of the Min­istry of En­er­gy, which orig­i­nal­ly de­vised the con­cept of the gov­ern­ment sup­ply­ing gas to the project from sources oth­er than the NGC, and which arrange­ments were ap­proved by the Cab­i­net,” the com­pa­ny said.

It not­ed that the TTUDEO­CL was cre­at­ed pur­pose­ly by Gov­ern­ment to en­ter in­to the gas sup­ply con­tract with Ni­Quan, and is there­fore in­clud­ed in the le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

“If the par­ties fail to re­solve the mat­ter am­i­ca­bly then, whether or not the in­ter­im in­junc­tive and de­clara­to­ry re­liefs are grant­ed fol­low­ing the ap­peal hear­ing, the mat­ter may ul­ti­mate­ly be re­ferred to ICC ar­bi­tra­tion as pre­scribed un­der the GSC.

“Fur­ther, Ni­Quan has en­gaged Bak­er & McKen­zie LLP in Lon­don and New York, and lead­ing com­mer­cial King’s Coun­sel Mr Stu­art Isaacs KC of Wilber­force Cham­bers, to ini­ti­ate the me­di­a­tion process; and al­so, if no res­o­lu­tion can be agreed, to have over­sight of all par­al­lel le­gal and in­ter­na­tion­al reme­dies pur­sued against UD and the GORTT,” it said.

Ni­Quan claims its plant is ful­ly op­er­a­tional yet with­out nat­ur­al gas, it can­not op­er­ate.

“Ni­Quan has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed and op­er­at­ed the world’s first com­mer­cial small-scale GTL plant, which has been pro­duc­ing clean, biodegrad­able, near-ze­ro sul­phur prod­ucts since 2022. The tech­nol­o­gy and ap­proach pi­o­neered by Ni­Quan is aligned with US en­er­gy and COP 28 poli­cies seek­ing in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es to clean en­er­gy. To­day the Ni­Quan plant is ful­ly op­er­a­tional,” it said.

Ni­Quan’s debt at

US$21 mil­lion

Ni­Quan’s con­tract with the TTUDEO­CL is for 31 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet per day (mm­scf/d). TTUDEO­CL sources the nat­ur­al gas from the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

Ni­Quan al­leged that TTUDEO­CL has stopped sup­ply­ing it with the nat­ur­al gas it needs, which is a breach of con­tract.

For its part, TTUCEO­CL stopped sup­ply­ing Ni­Quan with gas af­ter the com­pa­ny ac­crued a debt of US$19 mil­lion which re­mains un­paid. It sub­se­quent­ly ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tract for non-pay­ment. The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that debt now stands at US$21 mil­lion.

In re­sponse to that, Ni­Quan said: “Ni­Quan’s ac­count with Trinidad and To­ba­go Up­stream Down­stream En­er­gy Op­er­a­tions Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (“UD”) was ful­ly paid up to the 6th April 2023. All oth­er amounts claimed by UD are ei­ther not due and payable or oth­er­wise in dis­pute.”

As a re­sult of Ni­Quan’s non-pay­ment, TTUDEO­CL re­mains in­debt­ed to the NGC for non-pay­ment. Un­less the NGC is paid, it will not re­lease gas to TTUDEO­CL.

Ni­Quan claimed the com­pa­ny stands to lose hun­dreds of mil­lions in in­vest­ments if it is not sup­plied with nat­ur­al gas.

“Since achiev­ing first on-spec prod­uct in Sep­tem­ber 2022, the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of gas has im­ped­ed it from run­ning at its name­plate ca­pac­i­ty of 2400 bar­rels per day. De­spite the se­vere cur­tail­ment of gas for long pe­ri­ods, Ni­Quan has been able to pro­duce over 15,000 bar­rels of prod­ucts, and trans­ferred same to its off­tak­er.

“Ni­Quan is await­ing re­sump­tion of the sup­ply of gas from UD as re­quired by the GSC. In June 2018, the GORTT Cab­i­net agreed to pro­vide the sup­ply of gas to Ni­Quan on a guar­an­teed ba­sis. Trinidad and To­ba­go has a proud his­to­ry of be­ing an oil and gas econ­o­my, and sanc­ti­ty of con­tract has been para­mount to this suc­cess. With­out sanc­ti­ty of con­tract, noth­ing works. Trinidad and To­ba­go are al­so a sig­na­to­ry to the Paris Ac­cord for cli­mate change. We stand by our com­mit­ment to se­cu­ri­ty and longevi­ty of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the com­pa­ny said.

Ni­Quan’s le­gal chal­lenges to the State come dur­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) in­to the 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 on the com­pa­ny’s cash flow.

On Ju­ly 30, the Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive­ly re­port­ed that Ni­Quan had over US$250 mil­lion (TT$1.7 bil­lion) in debt and was strug­gling to meet pay­ments to the tune of mil­lions owed to con­trac­tors, in­clud­ing 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 Sun­day 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 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 Wash­ing­ton DC reg­is­tered, Ni­Quan En­er­gy LLC.