Timor-Leste launches first offshore bid round

Aug. 18, 2005
Mari Altakiri, prime minister of Timor-Leste, announced the country's first oil exploration bidding round for the Timor Sea.

Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Aug. 18 -- Mari Altakiri, prime minister of Timor-Leste, announced the country's first oil exploration bidding round for the Timor Sea.

Altakiri said the round would be competitive and transparent in an accountable process, with details available early next month. Areas to be offered are in undisputed territory outside the contentious Joint Development Zone held with Australia in the central Timor Sea.

The move follows the parliamentary approval in July of a new legal and fiscal regime for development of oil and gas resources both on and offshore. A comprehensive 6,600 km, 2-D seismic survey was acquired earlier this year by a consortium of Petro-China Co. Ltd. and Norway's Global Geo Services AS. That data and other geological information will be available to potential bidders

The prime minister and other officials plan an international tour to highlight the petroleum potential of the region, beginning in Singapore on Sept. 2 and moving on to London, Calgary and Houston.

There has been only one well drilled off Timor-Leste—the Mola-1 wildcat drilled in 1975 to TD of 3,077 m in shallow waters off the south coast by Woodside Burmah Oil NL, forerunner of Woodside Petroleum Ltd of Perth; and Timor Oil Ltd., Sydney. It encountered natural gas shows in Pliocene sediments. However, annexation of East Timor by Indonesia a few months later voided the permits, and no further work was done.

There are a number of oil seeps onshore. Between 1957-1975 Timor Oil drilled 21 land wells without commercial success.

Land permits are not included in this first bid round, but there is speculation that Jurassic formations may have good reservoir potential offshore, with horizons that are stratigraphically equivalent to the Malita and Plover formations in the Australian Bonaparte Gulf Basin to the south.