Timor Leste's opposition to Woodside Petroleum's proposals for the greater Sunrise development may further delay the project, JPMorgan Chase has claimed.
JPMorgan analyst Mark Greenwood said Dili's decision may see first gas from the Timor Sea field come on stream until 2016, rather than the initial estimate of 2014.Greenwood added that Woodside has not yet set a firm date for first gas.
"If you look back at the history of this project, it has slipped and slipped and slipped again," he told Bloomberg.
"That's not to say it's not going to happen. But it seems there are more issues to work through."
Earlier this week, Timor Leste repeated its opposition to any development plan that does not include a processing plant on its soil.
Woodside and its partners, including ConocoPhillips and Shell, are considering whether to process the fuel on a floating liquefied natural gas plant or pipe it to Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory.
A Woodside spokeswoman said that under a treaty covering the field, Australia, Timor Leste and the Sunrise partners were "required to develop the reservoir to the best commercial advantage".
Timor Leste would not approve the Sunrise partners' proposals because the best commercial option for the gas was in dispute, Secretary of State Agio Pereira told Reuters earlier this week.
Manuel Mendonca, director of communications for Timor Leste's Natural Resource Ministry told the news agency that Dili may ask Malaysian state-run giant Petronas to develop the project instead of the Woodside-led group.
The option of piping the gas to Timor Leste for processing "had been eliminated unilaterally by Woodside without proper due assessment", Pereira claimed.
He added that Dili had carried out a study with Petronas evaluating Sunrise development options, he said.
In 2007, Australia and Timor Leste signed a treaty covering the administration of the Sunrise field, which straddles a boundary between Australian waters and an area jointly managed by the two countries, and share royalties.
The Australian government "remains firmly committed to the treaty", Michael Bradley, a spokesman for Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, told Bloomberg.
The government was waiting to receive a development proposal from Woodside and its partners, Bradley added.
Sunrise is estimated to hold about 5.13 trillion cubic feet of gas.
source: upstreamonline.com
No comments:
Post a Comment