Greymouth counsel Mike Camp QC, assisted by Mark O'Brien, said Indo-Pacific subsidiary Ngatoro energy Ltd was wrong in its assertion that it could do as it pleased with the Goldie discovery until Greymouth had paid the six-times sole risk premium. "This is the misconception, the assertion, on which many of NEL's actions and reactions are based."

NEL had been focused on its own short-term gain at the expense of longer-term recoveries and the interests of the other Goldie joint venture partner. Greymouth had rights once it had bought Shell New Zealand's majority stake in the onshore Taranaki Kaimiro mining licence, within which Goldie was situated.

However, NEL counsel Alan MacKenzie said Greymouth had engaged in a plan designed to obtain, at NEL's expense, rights in the Goldie discovery which were "completely disproportionate" to its contribution to the discovery.

Greymouth's aim was to have the Goldie-1 well shut down and, after the well had been shut in, it had felt free to draw on that reservoir, through its own Kaimiro-19 well. "A striking feature of this case is the sheer selfishness of the plaintiff's claim," said MacKenzie.

Greymouth counsel said Shell had paid to "back in" to the Goldie sole risk venture and in November 2001 had asked NEL for a development plan, but never received one.

NEL had put the well into production, without having any right to do so, and was producing at an excessively high rate, flaring all of the gas without the necessary regulatory consents. "Small wonder then that Shell, albeit focused on other matters, questioned how it was that NEL was conducting production operations."

Greymouth picked up where Shell had left off and found NEL's approach was entirely at odds with the joint venture agreement and also was inconsistent with international norms and standard sole risk procedure, a point which NEL's international expert, Daniel Johnston, had conceded.

Greymouth asked the court for a declaration that it was entitled to full participation rights at Goldie, including rights to participate in operating committee meetings of the Goldie sub-joint venture. It also asked for rulings on the extent of the sole risk operation costs and premium and the question of loss of potential recoveries.

MacKenzie said Greymouth principal Mark Dunphy's evidence should not be given credence. Greymouth's campaign had started even before it had purchased Shell's interests in the Ngatoro field.

It made its bid in July, 2001, before Shell's "back in" and before any question of the relationship between Shell and NEL could have arisen. Dunphy confirmed the amount of Greymouth's bid did not change from that time.

"Thus, Greymouth could not have relied upon any representation made by NEL to Shell about the relationship between them."

Dunphy also admitted, under cross examination, that he would not have entered into a sole risk operation on the terms agreed to by Shell.

A second example of the self-serving nature of Dunphy's evidence was his maintaining that NEL simply produced oil from the well as quickly as possible, when his own expert, Mike Adams, did not agree with that assessment.

Another Greymouth witness, Professor Ashoc Khurana was, "that most dangerous of witnesses, a partisan expert who professes to be independent", added MacKenzie, who said that on one occasion his review of documents was "manifestly slanted and inaccurate".

MacKenzie said Khurana's evidence was unworthy of the credibility that ought to attach to a properly independent and suitably qualified expert.