Justice Wild on Friday released his 100-page report on the Greymouth Petroleum versus Indo-Pacific Energy fight; finding for Greymouth regarding some of its claims, yet siding with Indo-Pacific over some of its counter-claims.

With both sides claiming victory, it may be the New Zealand-wide industry which suffers if this prolonged and very public battle tarnishes this country's reputation as a friendly place to conduct EP business. In recent months several industry commentators have told EnergyReview.Net New Zealand has more energy-related litigation than several other bigger countries.

Indo-Pacific is to be stripped of its operatorship of the Goldie oil field - which it sole-risked, drilled and subsequently brought into production - after the court upheld Greymouth claims that Indo-Pacific, through its Ngatoro Energy Ltd subsidiary, had developed the field without consent and operated it in a less than optimal manner. Greymouth is now seeking to take over as Goldie operator and to tie Goldie into its adjacent Kaimiro operations.

Greymouth chairman Mark Dunphy said he was pleased with these court rulings. "We hope now to move quickly to development of the Goldie resource. It is disappointing that the actions of Indo-Pacific Energy required this matter to be resolved through court proceedings."

Greymouth had made the 2002 purchase of Shell New Zealand's majority interest in Ngatoro, within which Goldie lies, relying on its entitlement to have Goldie managed properly and prudently, added the former Cultus Petroleum chairman.

Indo-Pacific chief executive Dave Bennett, however, almost rejoiced that the court had rejected the 'key' monetary claims of Greymouth Petroleum against Indo-Pacific and confirmed its entitlement to 100% of Goldie oil and gas net revenues until it had recovered $US11 million; being six times the $US1.85 million sole risk cost of the Goldie-1 discovery well.

After this amount had been received, Indo-Pacific's share would be 40% of all revenues until it had received another $US5.5 million; thereafter the company's share would fall to 5%.

"This was not about Dave Bennett being a naughty boy, this was an attempt by Greymouth to appropriate the entire value of a discovery they did not make," he told EnergyReview.Net from Wellington.

The court accepted several Greymouth claims and found five breaches of Indo-Pacific's obligations to Greymouth and the Taranaki Regional Council.

* Failure to seek or gain approval for development of the Goldie oil field.

* Failure to prepare a development program and budget for the Goldie discovery.

* Flaring gas from Goldie without the appropriate TRC resource consents.

* Acting toward Greymouth in bad faith and with a lack of candour, and deliberately and falsely representing its position to Greymouth and the TRC.

* Developing Goldie in a sub-optimal manner involving significant losses and excessive costs.

However, the court also rejected several Greymouth claims and accepted the countering Indo-Pacific claims. The court rejected the following:

* Greymouth's claim that would have reduced the sole risk premium by around a third and also that the joint venture agreement should be construed as entitling Greymouth to a 92% interest rather than the 59.56% which it had purchased last year from Shell New Zealand.

* Greymouth's claim to any portion of the revenues since first production in March 2001.

* The claim by Greymouth that, other than with respect to by-product gas, Indo-Pacific had "sub-optimally" produced petroleum from Goldie.

* Greymouth's claim that it was entitled to Goldie by-product gas under the Ngatoro Gas Contract.

"Greymouth is welcome to operatorship given that Indo-Pacific's paramount entitlement to Goldie revenues has been recognised by the High Court. We have the protection of the joint venture agreement, in addition to which the court has explicitly noted that we can apply for injunctive relief if Greymouth fail to perform.

"We will take all steps necessary to see that the operator gets Goldie producing for us without unreasonable costs or delays," Bennett concluded.

Initial industry comment was, as were the court's judgments, "a bob each way".

"I thought Greymouth had some interesting arguments and stood a good chance of winning some of its claims, but it didn"t win on the key financial issue of the equity split of the interest. In the end, this has to be seen as the big win for Indo; Greymouth got control but Indo got the money," said one.

"Certainly, Greymouth will receive some advantages from taking over operatorship. However, with a pissed off Indo-Pacific combing the JVOA to keep them on the straight and narrow, I see a very rocky relationship in the future," added another.