Greater Sunrise Pipe to Timor Leste "a Must", says Official

Development of the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the waters between Australia and Timor Leste would need to include the option of a pipeline to Timor Leste, according to comments made by the latter Prime Minister’s chief of staff to The Australian newspaper November 10.

An ongoing dispute over the maritime boundary in the Timor Sea has prevented development of the fields. Last month Australia and Timor Leste reached a draft treaty on the issue, which saw the focus progress to securing agreement between the parties on how to develop the fields.

Over the weekend, Timor Leste Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told The Australian that “everything is on the table” when asked whether the country would consider an option that didn’t involve an LNG plant in Timor Leste. But Alkatiri’s chief of staff, Nelson Santos, on November 10 “strongly refuted” the suggestion that the country was open to any other development option for Sunrise.

“Any development in the Greater Sunrise field must include the option of a pipeline to Timor Leste,” he said.

“The ongoing infrastructure development in our southern coast of the country to host petroleum processing facilities should be a strong testament to this commitment,” he said.

The Greater Sunrise fields (Sunrise and Troubadour), which are 150km south-east offshore Timor Leste and 450km northwest of Darwin, Australia, were discovered in 1974 and hold gross contingent resources of 5.13 trillion ft3 gas and 225.9mn barrels of condensate, says operator Woodside Energy. 

Woodside has a 33.44% interest in Greater Sunrise, alongside ConocoPhillips (30%), Shell (26.56%) and Japan' Osaka Gas (10%). The partners are reportedly in favour of piping gas from the fields back to the Darwin LNG plant or to a floating LNG vessel. 

Nathan Richardson