East Timor President says that improved trust will drive long-stalled project
East Timor’s president is confident in what he called a new era goodwill between Canberra, Woodside Energy and his country. This will finally allow the development of an important gas project to proceed after years of delays.
Woodside and East Timor have agreed to study a project of 5 million metric tons at the Greater Sunrise Fields, an area that contains an estimated 5.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. Australia has been talking about this since the 1980s, originally with Indonesia.
Jose Ramos Horta, a spokesperson for the Australian government and Woodside Energy, said that trust had improved between the two nations following previous tensions. This marked a change from Dili’s criticisms of Canberra and Woodside regarding delays in the project.
In an interview given during a trip to Perth, he stated that a new level of trust had been established. He cited the increased pace of the work on the project as well as what he perceived to be goodwill coming from Canberra through Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s comments last year.
TIMELINE FOR PRODUCTION OF GAS IS EXPECTED HOLD
The agreement signed last week forecast that the project will produce gas between 2032 and 2035. This was the first time both parties had announced a timeline. Ramos Horta expects the schedule to be maintained.
Woodside refused to make any further comments beyond his previous statements.
The two sides were at odds over whether Woodside preferred to pipe natural gas to Darwin or to build a plant to liquefy gas on the south coast of East Timor.
Woodside has dropped its insistance on a Darwin-based solution under Meg O'Neill as CEO, but it still hasn't backed a development in East Timor.
The development was initially slowed by an intense maritime boundary dispute, which was settled in 2018.
East Timor insisted on building a greenfield facility and has used its sovereign fund to purchase ConocoPhillips, Shell and other companies from the project between 2018 and 2019.
The field is located 140 km south of East Timor, and 400 km north of Darwin.
Potential Chinese Investment
MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic estimated that building an industrial plant in Timor would cost $5 billion more than Darwin. However, Canberra could be influenced by the geopolitical implications of a Chinese involvement to support Timor's plans.
Ramos Horta, the East Timor official who said that East Timor preferred to work with Australia, Woodside, and Japan's Osaka Gas, over Chinese companies interested in the project has emphasized Canberra's role as a strategic partner.
He said that Australia was indispensable for the interests of Timor Leste, its security and its economic well-being.
He said that East Timor was willing to spend additional funds from its sovereign fund in order to develop the concept of onshore industries.
He said, "We're so confident in the Timor option that we have no contingency plans." Helen Clark, Tony Munroe, and Jan Harvey edited the report.
(source: Reuters)
