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The dis­pute be­tween the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) and Methanex over the in­def­i­nite idling of the Ti­tan methanol plant has re­newed de­bate over whether nat­ur­al gas prices from state-owned com­pa­nies should re­main con­fi­den­tial even af­ter gas sup­ply con­tract ne­go­ti­a­tions have end­ed.

On Tues­day, NGC main­tained that gas sup­ply vol­umes were not the is­sue in dis­cus­sions with Methanex and said the com­pa­ny had been of­fered the same con­tract­ed vol­ume un­der the ex­pir­ing agree­ment, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ad­di­tion­al sup­plies if re­quired. In­stead, NGC said the dis­agree­ment cen­tred on price.