Dili yet to award Sunrise development job

The government of Timor Leste said today that it still has not awarded a contract to any company to develop a pipeline or LNG facility from its lucrative Greater Sunrise gas field.

Australian energy company Woodside Petroleum holds the exploration and exploitation rights of the Greater Sunrise field but the government said in January that it would not approve Woodside's development plan unless it also built an onshore plant to liquefy gas.

The Australian operator plans to either send gas by pipeline to Darwin for liquefaction or exploit it using a floating liquefied natural gas vessel.

Timor-Leste has long argued that Sunrise gas be exploited via a liquefaction plant on its south coast — a proposal rejected by Woodside and its partners.

Reports in January claimed that the government was considering approaching Malaysian state oil company Petronas instead.

However, Dili said in a statement today that it had not entered into a contract with Petronas to replace Woodside as the upstream developer of the site.

The statement also said that neither Petronas nor Woodside nor any other company had been selected as the downstream developer.

"It is also important to note that the Government of Timor-Leste has not given any downstream contracts for the Greater Sunrise project to any company including Woodside. The downstream segment will include the contract for transportation (the pipeline) and processing (the LNG-Plant)," it said.