The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (NGC) has re­spond­ed to Methanex’s de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly idle its Ti­tan plant, stat­ing that the move stems pri­mar­i­ly from dis­agree­ment over gas pric­ing rather than sup­ply avail­abil­i­ty.

In a state­ment to­day, NGC said it wished to “place in prop­er con­text” the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the de­ci­sion, em­pha­sis­ing that it re­mained com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the coun­try’s petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor and main­tain­ing a long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with Methanex.

The state-owned com­pa­ny said that through­out ne­go­ti­a­tions it en­gaged “con­struc­tive­ly and in good faith” in an ef­fort to reach a com­mer­cial­ly vi­able agree­ment. Ac­cord­ing to NGC, gas sup­ply vol­umes were not the is­sue. The com­pa­ny said it of­fered Methanex the same con­tract­ed vol­umes pro­vid­ed un­der the ex­pir­ing Gas Sales Con­tract and was al­so will­ing to con­sid­er an in­crease if re­quired.