GREATER SUNRISE DISPUTE ESCALATES

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Rachel Hewitt - Herald Sun - December 11, 2010

THE war of words over the Greater Sunrise gas fields development has escalated.

The East Timorese Government seized on the recent $900 million cost blowout at Woodside's Western Australian Pluto project and warned against similar problems at Sunrise.

In a statement, East Timorese secretary of state Agio Pereira said that if such overruns happened with the Greater Sunrise project "the costs would effectively be paid for by the people of Timor-Leste, before any revenue stream flowed to the nation".

Woodside and East Timor have been locked in a stand-off over how to process the Sunrise gas, located in the Timor Sea, for the past year.

Sunrise project partners Woodside, Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips believe a floating LNG vessel is the best option, but the East Timorese Government wants to pipe it back to the mainland to an onshore plant.

Mr Pereira yesterday said Woodside had "relented" to regulatory demands by presenting a study of an onshore processing plant in September, along with studies of a floating plant and a third option, to pipe the gas to Darwin.

Woodside declined to comment yesterday.
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