Woodside, East Timor plan on resolving gas dispute soon

Woodside Petroleum of Australia entered talks with East Timor to build an onshore liquefaction plant that could lead to the Greater Sunrise fields dispute being finally resolved.

Major obstacle in the process has been the inability of the two countries to see eye to eye on sharing revenue from the Greater Sunrise fields which have remained undeveloped 40 years after their discovery, reports Reuters.

Woodside preferred the option of building a floating LNG plant, but recent comments by the company’s CEO Peter Coleman reveal that both parties have been discussing different concepts, both floating and offshore.

It remains to be seen how the dispute will be resolved and even the recent agreement to adjourn an international arbitration over the dispute in a six moths time frame has been viewed as ambitious for resolving issues that have been dragging on for decades.

The Greater Sunrise fields potential capacity is estimated at over 5 tcf of gas.

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LNG World News Staff; Image: Woodside