Australia, East Timor (Timor-Leste), and the partners in the Sunrise JV made “meaningful progress” in talks over the development of the Greater Sunrise fields, according to Australian LNG player Woodside.
The Greater Sunrise fields, located about 450 km north-west of Darwin and 150 km south of East Timor, comprise the Sunrise and Troubadour gas and condensate fields.
Woodside holds a 33.44 operating stake in the JV, the nation’s oil company Timor GAP has a 56.56 percent stake while Japan’s Osaka Gas has a 10 percent stake.
The JV released on Friday an update on Greater Sunrise negotiations.
According to a joint statement, Timor-Leste’s petroleum regulatory authority and other government representatives met with representatives from the Australian government in Dili, Timor-Leste this week, along with representatives from the JV to progress the talks on the petroleum mining code, the production sharing contract, and the fiscal (tax) arrangements.
This round of negotiations is the latest in a series of meetings to agree the key governance
documents that will set out the regulatory and legal frameworks to support the development
of the Greater Sunrise gas and condensate fields, the statement said.
Since the resumption of negotiations in October 2023, “meaningful progress” has been made as the parties work towards the requirements as set out in Annex B of the 2018 Maritime Boundary Treaty (MBT), they said.
“All parties are committed to working as quickly as possible to finalize the frameworks that underpin developing Greater Sunrise,” the statement said.
The parties reaffirmed their commitment to developing a “mutually beneficial and commercially viable Greater Sunrise project as soon as feasibly possible, consistent with the MBT”.
Concept study
During this round of negotiations, the Sunrise JV provided an update on the
concept study being undertaken by Wood on behalf of the Sunrise Joint Venture.
“All parties are looking forward to seeing the results of the study by no later than the fourth quarter of this year,” the statement said.
In November last year, the JV received approval from East Timor to kick off work on the concept study for the development of the Greater Sunrise fields.
After that, Woodside and its partners awarded in April this year the Greater Sunrise concept study contract to a unit of consulting and engineering firm Wood.
According to Woodside, the Greater Sunrise fields contain an estimated contingent resource (2C) 5.3 Tcf of dry gas and 226 MMbbl of condensate.
Woodside previously preferred the option of sending the Sunrise gas to Darwin as there are two existing LNG plants in the region, namely the Santos-led Darwin LNG facility and the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG plant.
However, Woodside’s CEO Meg O’Neill revealed in November 2022 that the firm is willing to consider sending the gas to a new LNG plant in East Timor.