Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Franklin Khan says the deal be­tween a new­ly-formed lo­cal com­pa­ny—the Trinidad and To­ba­go Up­stream/Down­stream Com­pa­ny (TTUDE­CO)—and Ni­Quan En­er­gy for the sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas for the Gas-to-Liq­uids (GTL) project is all above board.

Af­ter more than a month of seek­ing de­tails on the deal, Khan on Thurs­day dis­closed that the deal was signed on June 2018—just three months af­ter the TTUDE­CO was in­cor­po­rat­ed.

Khan told Guardian Me­dia the nat­ur­al gas for this deal will come from the “min­is­ter’s share”.

“In each block, there is a share in the min­is­ter’s name which can vary up to 20 or 30 per cent,” he said. He said such a pro­vi­sion is found in “var­i­ous pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts.”

Paria Trad­ing, one of the three new com­pa­nies com­ing out of the Petrotrin shut down, will now take over the con­tract and be the new off-tak­er for any sup­ply pro­duced by Ni­Quan.

This deal, ac­cord­ing to Khan, will see Ni­Quan get­ting 31 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet per day of nat­ur­al gas, be­fore liquifi­ca­tion.

It is a long-term con­tract to im­prove the qual­i­ty of diesel fu­el and the val­ue will be based on the vol­ume used. He de­clined to dis­close the dol­lar val­ue of the arrange­ment on the ba­sis of a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty clause. Khan said the con­tract is for 10 years with an op­tion to re­new for two five year pe­ri­ods.

In a state­ment to Par­lia­ment in Ju­ly, Khan said the nat­ur­al gas to Ni­Quan has to be sourced “from arrange­ments that ex­clude the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T and which are on com­mer­cial­ly ac­cept­able terms.”

The com­pa­ny was al­so able to se­cure a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar loan from Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd (RBL) to help off­set the sum of US$100 mil­lion still need­ed to com­plete the GTL plant.

TTUDE­CO lists on­ly two peo­ple on its com­pa­ny doc­u­ments, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Fi­nance Vish­nu Dhan­paul and his col­league, the deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the same min­istry.

For­mer Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go chair­man Al­i­son Lewis serves as the vice-pres­i­dent of Ni­Quan and al­so sits on the board of RBL. She de­nied there was any con­flict of in­ter­est in her be­ing on both boards.

“I am on the board of RBL and have been for the last four years,” she said.

“Re­gard­ing RBL, there was no con­flict of in­ter­est. My mem­ber­ship of both boards is a mat­ter of pub­lic record and ful­ly dis­closed. Due process was ob­served through­out.”

Lewis di­rect­ed all ques­tions re­gard­ing the Ni­Quan deal with T&TUDE­CO to that com­pa­ny. She did not say who rep­re­sent­ed the com­pa­ny in meet­ings with Ni­Quan to work out the gas sup­ply deal. She al­so di­rect­ed all fur­ther ques­tions to Ni­Quan’s VP cor­po­rate af­fairs, Mal­colm Wells.

Wells al­so di­rect­ed all ques­tions re­gard­ing that deal to the T&TUDE­CO.

“In terms of your in­quiry, I’m very hap­py to tell you what we’ll do with the gas but any ques­tions re­lat­ing to gas sup­ply and the T&TUDEOC need to be di­rect­ed to them,” Wells said in an emailed re­sponse to ques­tions.

“Ni­Quan En­er­gy can on­ly speak on be­half of Ni­Quan En­er­gy and com­mer­cial mat­ters are, as you’d ex­pect, com­pa­ny con­fi­den­tial,” he added.

“I’m very hap­py to talk about the ben­e­fits of GTL prod­ucts and what Ni­Quan GTL will de­liv­er in terms of jobs, in­vest­ment and a clean fu­el fu­ture for the Caribbean, but ques­tions re­lat­ing to oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions should be di­rect­ed to them.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Dhan­paul, whose name ap­pears as a di­rec­tor on the T&TUDE­CO. Guardian Me­dia in­formed Dhan­paul that Ni­Quan con­firmed a gas sup­ply deal with T&TUDE­CO and asked who at the com­pa­ny ne­go­ti­at­ed the deal.

“Please ad­dress ques­tions to the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy,” he said.