Long legal battle over gas settled

By CHRIS DANIELS energy writer

A marathon legal battle over who could sell gas in the 1980s has finally been settled out of court.

The dispute began in 1988 over an exclusive gas contract between the Crown and then state-owned Petrocorp, later a subsidiary of Fletcher Challenge.

The contract bound the Crown to sell gas only to Petrocorp and its subsidiary NGC.

King Country man Pat Carey, who set up his own gas supply company Marine Resources, applied for the franchise to sell natural gas in the Waikato and King Country, but was refused.

His company later went into receivership.

Mr Carey argued that the exclusive contract between the Crown and Petrocorp breached the 1986 Commerce Act - a point acknowledged by the Commerce Commission - and made a claim for $24 million plus interest.

NGC said if the case had proceeded to trial it would have taken at least eight weeks to hear and "would have raised complex legal and technical issues".

Yesterday, NGC said it, the Crown and Shell would pay a total of $1.3 million to Mr Carey and Marine Resources.

Shell bought the assets of what was Petrocorp.

NGC was formerly part of the state-owned enterprise.