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Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien has re­ject­ed claims by the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) that it owes sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars in retroac­tive port fees, trig­ger­ing a stand­off that has forced the com­pa­ny to be­gin a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that the dis­pute over port ac­cess and out­stand­ing fees re­mains un­re­solved, even as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the com­pa­ny. Nu­trien, which op­er­ates at Point Lisas, in­sist­ed the fees are un­jus­ti­fied and said NEC’s de­ci­sion to re­strict port ac­cess has left it with no choice but to tem­porar­i­ly halt op­er­a­tions, putting some 600 jobs on the line.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, NEC and the min­istry, un­der for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, failed to ne­go­ti­ate new port con­tracts with sev­er­al down­stream op­er­a­tors for more than four years. He said the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed the is­sue and is now re­spon­si­ble for re­solv­ing it.