Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) has strong­ly de­nied claims that its ne­go­ti­a­tions with Niger­ian en­er­gy com­pa­ny Oan­do Plc have col­lapsed. The com­pa­ny re­spond­ed last night to a Face­book post by jour­nal­ist Ken Ali, which al­leged the re­fin­ery deal had fall­en through.

TPHL said dis­cus­sions with Oan­do re­main ac­tive and on­go­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, both par­ties held one face-to-face meet­ing on March 13th and three vir­tu­al meet­ings, the lat­est on April 10th. An­oth­er ses­sion is sched­uled for April 23rd. Oan­do al­so sub­mit­ted doc­u­men­ta­tion on April 17th, which TPHL is re­view­ing ahead of an April 22nd re­sponse.

TPHL said since Cab­i­net grant­ed ap­proval on Feb­ru­ary 27th for the process to pro­ceed, it has re­ceived no in­struc­tion or di­rec­tion from Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young or any oth­er gov­ern­ment mem­ber. The com­pa­ny said its ne­go­ti­at­ing team, which in­cludes lo­cal and for­eign ad­vis­ers, con­tin­ues to work to­wards fi­nal­is­ing a deal to restart the re­fin­ery.

“There is quite sim­ply no truth what­so­ev­er” to the sug­ges­tion of a col­lapsed deal, TPHL said, de­scrib­ing Ali’s state­ments as “un­for­tu­nate, un­help­ful, mis­lead­ing and mis­chie­vous”.

Ali’s post, head­lined “PETROTRIN-OAN­DO PRE-ELEC­TION DEAL COL­LAPS­ES”, claimed that Oan­do ex­ec­u­tives had can­celled a planned vis­it last week.