Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Ni­Quan does not have au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) to restart its plant.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said it pro­vid­ed two re­ports to the MEEI in the ex­pec­ta­tion that it would be cleared to re-com­mence op­er­a­tions—an In­de­pen­dent Root Cause Analy­sis Re­port dat­ed Au­gust 19 on the in­ci­dent at the plant on June 15 which led to the death of 35-year-old pip­efit­ter Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon and a copy of an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) Cer­tifi­cate of Com­pli­ance dat­ed Au­gust 23.

But the MEEI in­sists that its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent is not com­plete and the com­pa­ny is not au­tho­rised to restart the plant.

The Min­istry’s Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary wrote to Ni­Quan on Au­gust 28 and ex­plained that the com­pa­ny still has out­stand­ing doc­u­ments to pro­vide to the MEEI for it to com­plete its in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The let­ter con­tin­ued: “Fur­ther, we note that Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Ltd (NETL) is of the view that the June 15, 2023 in­ci­dent does not qual­i­fy as a ma­jor in­ci­dent in­volv­ing se­ri­ous dam­age to the in­stal­la­tion and thus no clear­ance for the recom­mence­ment is re­quired from the MEEI. The MEEI ad­vis­es that NETL’s view is in­cor­rect and MEEI clear­ance for recom­mence­ment is re­quired.”

Ni­Quan was ad­vised that pur­suant to the Pe­tro­le­um Act Chap 62:01 and the Pe­tro­le­um Reg­u­la­tions, the MEEI has start­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the June 15 in­ci­dent.

“The MEEI’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion has not been com­plet­ed and as such, NETL does not have ap­proval from the MEEI to recom­mence op­er­a­tions,” the let­ter said.

Gill blames Gov­ern­ment

In the state­ment, Ains­ley Gill, the com­pa­ny’s founder, chief vi­sion­ary of­fi­cer and di­rec­tor, not­ed that the Ni­Quan GTL plant “is com­plete­ly func­tion­al, and ready to op­er­ate at ca­pac­i­ty to­day.”

“Fol­low­ing Ni­Quan’s full com­pli­ance with the pro­hi­bi­tion no­tice is­sued by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA) on June 21, 2023, OS­HA is­sued a Cer­tifi­cate of Com­pli­ance on the Au­gust 23, 2023, and phys­i­cal­ly re­moved the no­tice on the Au­gust 27, 2023,” the state­ment said.

Gill said: “The on­ly rea­son the fa­cil­i­ty is not cur­rent­ly on­line is due to the lack of the min­i­mum dai­ly quan­ti­ty of gas sup­ply which the Gov­ern­ment of T&T—through Trinidad and To­ba­go Up­stream Down­stream En­er­gy Op­er­a­tions Com­pa­ny (UD)—agreed to pro­vide to Ni­Quan pur­suant to the Gov­ern­ment’s con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion to source and se­cure such re­quired quan­ti­ties of gas to keep the plant op­er­a­tional.”

On Au­gust 21, Ni­Quan lost a le­gal bat­tle against the State in its bid to buy nat­ur­al gas for the plant. For its part, the Gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tract be­cause Ni­Quan owes it US$21 mil­lion.

“Whilst Ni­Quan is look­ing to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment to ar­rive at an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion, we must pre­serve our le­gal reme­dies pur­suant to the gas sales con­tract terms, to pro­tect the com­pa­ny and its nu­mer­ous in­vestors and stake­hold­ers,” Gill said.

Ni­Quan has filed an ap­peal to com­pel the Gov­ern­ment to give it gas to op­er­ate its plant.

“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 gas sales con­tract.

“Fur­ther, Ni­Quan has en­gaged Bak­er & McKen­zie LLP in Lon­don and New York, and lead­ing com­mer­cial King’s Coun­sel 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,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment sent to Guardian Me­dia two weeks ago.

Ni­quan’s con­tract with the TTUDEO­CL is for 31 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet per day (mm­scf/d), or less than one per cent (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 0.8 per cent) of the T&T’s dai­ly gas sup­ply.

On Ju­ly 30, the Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive­ly re­port­ed that Ni­Quan has more than US$250 mil­lion (TT$1.7 bil­lion) in debt and is strug­gling to meet pay­ments to the tune of mil­lions owed to con­trac­tors, in­clud­ing Ju­nior Sam­my and Massy En­er­gy.

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.