Petro­chem­i­cal gi­ant Sau­di Ba­sic In­dus­tries Corp (SABIC) says it is halt­ing plans to de­vel­op a $5.3 bil­lion methanol com­plex in the en­er­gy-rich Caribbean na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.In a state­ment Sun­day, SABIC said it de­cid­ed not to con­tin­ue with ne­go­ti­a­tions for the planned com­plex af­ter the "rel­e­vant par­ties did not reach a deal on the fun­da­men­tal con­di­tions for this project."

No specifics on the dif­fer­ences were dis­closed.The project was ex­pect­ed to be a part­ner­ship with Sinopec Corp, one of Chi­na's three ma­jor state-owned oil com­pa­nies.SABIC an­nounced a year ago that it hoped to de­vel­op the methanol plant in Trinidad. Trinidad En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn calls for com­ment. T&T is the sec­ond biggest en­er­gy pro­duc­er in the Caribbean af­ter Venezuela.