Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Feb. 14 -- Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos Horta has surprised the oil and gas industry this week with an announcement in New York that voting on the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) and the Greater Sunrise Unitization Agreement (GSUA) will take place during the country's parliamentary sitting in Dili on Feb. 19.
Horta said he was confident the parliament would pass both documents. The GSUA was signed in 2003 and the CMATS in January 2006.
Australia has been deferring its own parliamentary ratification of the two agreements until Timor-Leste acted first. It is expected to debate the issue in parliament in Canberra on Feb. 20.
CMATS would put East Timor's share of revenue from the Woodside Petroleum Ltd.-operated shelved Greater Sunrise LNG project as high as $14 billion because revenue would be split 50-50 with Australia instead of the previous 80-20 split in favor of Australia.
The field has estimated reserves of 8 tcf of gas and 300 million bbl of condensate.
Woodside has consistently said that the Greater Sunrise project was stalled until there was clear legal, fiscal, and regulatory certainty.
The company—and its joint venture partners ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and Osaka Gas—has already spent $250 million (Aus.) on field exploration and appraisal, development planning, and market studies for the project, which is now expected to cost in excess of $10 billion (Aus.).
Since the stagnation Woodside has moved two Western Australian LNG projects into its front line ahead of Greater Sunrise. These include the proposed Pluto development in the Carnarvon basin off Karratha and the proposed Browse basin project based on Torosa (Scott Reef), Brecknock, and Calliance (Brecknock South) fields off Broome.
Woodside still believes the Greater Sunrise project is internationally competitive, but even if work resumed this year it may struggle to come on stream before 2015 at least.
Apart from the issue of treaty ratifications, the Timor-Leste Parliament has yet to give a clear indication on its previous stance that the LNG plant facilities be built within its borders.
Woodside has consistently argued that although piping Greater Sunrise gas across the Timor Trench to Timor-Leste is technically possible, the plan is commercially unattractive.
