The representatives, who are seeking to overturn an anti-collective marketing and sales ruling made by the Commission in May, warned that if joint arrangements could not be struck then the project faced value destruction and possible disputes within the joint venture.

The Commission found earlier this year that joint marketing and selling of Pohokura gas would be significant detriment to the New Zealand public.

However, the Commission said the potential public good outweighed the "large overall detriment" if the Pohokura partners agreed to limiting the time period of the authorisation to five years; ensuring first gas from Pohokura was available by February 2006, with full production capability from June 2006; restricting the authorisation to not apply to any successors of the applicants; and ring-fencing marketing of the Pohokura field.

The partners submitted that by not allowing joint marketing and selling the project would be held back by three years, not one as claimed by the Commission.

Todd Energy chief executive, Richard Tweedie, told the Wellington forum that separate marketing and selling of Pohokura gas could disintegrate the presently aligned interests of the partners.

He also said separate marketing could see "gaming" by the joint venture partners - meaning they would move to protect and maximise their own portfolios, possibly leading to big project inefficiencies.

Shell Exploration commercial executive, Murray Jackson, argued that while there was a natural disposition to separate marketing, the joint venture partners had underestimated the difficulties involved with separate selling.

OMV NZ commercial director, David Salisbury, told the Commission that there had been some knee-jerk reactions from downstream users and a lot of sweeping statements made