The High Court has refused to order Lough Neagh Exploration Ltd to give the State seismic field tapes relating to potential oil and gas deposits off the north-west coast bordering Mayo, Sligo and Donegal.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy also refused Lough Neagh Exploration injunctions restraining the Minister from granting a prospecting licence to consultant geologist Susan Morrice, her company S. Morrice & Associates Ltd and Priority Oil & Gas Ltd, both incorporated in Colerado.

In a reserved judgment, Ms Justice Laffoy said a prospecting licence for the North Western Basin had been held by a consortium between 1980 and 1987 for which Ms Morrice worked on a consultancy basis.

Her work involved consideration of all technical matters and a review of all seismic data, well logs, reports, maps and published papers relating to the Basin. When her work finished, she had been left in possession of extensive information concerning the exploratory work carried out.

In 1989, the consortium had assigned all its technical data on the Basin to Mr James F. Kenny who later assigned it to Lough Neagh Exploration in which he owned 55 per cent of the share capital. Ms Morrice was a co-director and owned the remaining share capital.

In 1991, a three-year consultancy deal, which included a confidentiality clause, had been struck between Ms Morrice and Lough Neagh Exploration. The company was now alleging she had breached the confidentiality clause.

In 1995, S. Morrice & Associates Ltd and Priority Oil & Gas Ltd had jointly applied to the Minister for a licence over the North Western Basin and the Minister had directed that one should be issued to them to cover a three-year period from March 1st, 1997, and possibly leading to an exclusive right to produce oil in the Basin.

Lough Neagh Exploration alleged confidential data was used to support this application to the Minister. Ms Morrice claimed the information to be in the public domain.

Ms Justice Laffoy said the seismic tapes had been put in secure storage in England. Ms Morrice had acknowledged that in January last year, without reference to Mr Kenny, she had arranged for copies of them to be furnished to the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. These tapes, the subject of the Minister's motion, had been retrieved and were back in secure storage.

She said Mr Kenny alleged that Ms Morrice's use of the data in her possession breached their consultancy agreement.

Ms Justice Laffoy said Ms Morrice contended the data in her possession ceased to be confidential in 1990 and 1991. She had also denied she acted in an illicit or underhand manner or that she ever disclosed or exploited confidential information.

A director of Priority Oil & Gas Ltd, Ms Robbie Gries, had told the court all of the data used to evaluate the Basin was in the public domain. The data listed in the inventory attached to the application to the Minister had not been analysed or used by them.

Ms Justice Laffoy said it was clear from the evidence that the real value of the seismic tapes was their capacity to be reprocessed. New geophysical technology over the last 15 years enabled old data to be reprocessed so that previously unseen information could now be enhanced and evaluated for new exploration potential.

They remained under lock and key in England to the order of Lough Neagh Exploration under the sole signature of Mr Kenny who refused to return them or to sanction their release to the Minister. There was no suggestion they were in jeopardy.

It had been submitted that the Minister was under a duty to exploit the State's natural resources and proposed to make the tapes available to parties with whom Lough Neagh Exploration was in dispute pending a full court hearing and determination of the matter.

The court held that a mandatory order in favour of the Minister would, in reality, finally determine the dispute and the equitable remedy of an interlocutory injunction could not be used in this way.

Refusing both applications, Ms Justice Laffoy said Lough Neagh Exploration could be compensated by way of damages in the event of its winning its court action. If it lost the case it was probable the defendants would sustain a loss of considerably greater magnitude than the ability of Lough Neagh Exploration to meet.