CEO of A&V Oil and Gas Ltd Hanif Baksh said he is pleased to have amicably settled the matter which led to termination of a lucrative contract his company had with former state-owned Petrotrin over the alleged "fake oil scandal.”
He now wants Government to lay the entire judgement – which found no evidence of fraud – in Parliament, so the public can judge for themselves and his company can be vindicated.
Baksh said in a statement on Thursday, sent via his attorney, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, “A&V believes that Petrotrin should make representations to the Government for the Government to disclose the entire judgment, in this case to the public,"
It said the Government ought to lay the judgment in the Parliament so that all MPs, the media and the public would have access to it.
“As CEO of A&V, I wish to tell the country that A&V intends to put all of the disputes behind it and to go forward to explore and extract the maximum amount of oil from the Catshill Field so that not only A&V would benefit, but that the production of oil by A&V would contribute to the national economy.
"Earlier this week, Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Co Ltd, (TPHL) issued a statement confirming that it had settled the arbitration dispute between itself and A&V in what it termed a ‘win-win for Petrotrin, TPHL and TT.”
TPHL said the settlement avoided the payment of millions in damages to A&V. It has agreed A&V will now enter into a new ten-year production sharing contract with the new State-owned oil company, Heritage.
A&V agreed settlement of the dispute over the company’s wrongful termination has indeed saved taxpayers millions as it had intended to pursue all legal channels to clear its name.
Baksh said his company was assured of victory, believing no court would have overturned the judgement of the panel led by Sir Dennis Byron.
He said the judgement did not only prove the allegations were misplaced, but showed A&V supplied real crude oil to Petrotrin, for which it should be paid.
“The lawyers for A&V were prepared to deal with any challenge and to have any such challenge dismissed. A&V's claim for damages would have been a very large sum in the vicinity of $800 million."
Baksh said he was pleased with the efforts to amicably resolve this matter, because A&V recognised Petrotrin mightnot have been able to pay the judgment debt and costs and Government would have had to step in to settle them.
Considering that process would have taken a long time, the company decided it was better to settle and get back into Catshill to earn money and produce oil for the country at the same time.
Baksh said it accepted repayment of approximately $102 million Petrotrin was holding with respect to oil it had already supplied, plus $18 million in damages, along with the lease to extract oil from the Catshill field.
Petrotrin felt it had reasonable grounds to sever ties with A&V, suspecting the contractor overstated the volume supplied and was overpaid by Petrotrin for oil it
