East Timor approaches China’s Sinopec over US$65 billion gas project

The field, whose revenues were estimated at US$65 billion in 2018, is vital to the economy of the poor Southeast Asian country but has been stalled for decades due to disagreements with Australia, which shares the field, and operator Woodside Energy, which is meant to spearhead the project’s development.

A bitter dispute over a maritime boundary was resolved in 2018. Now the main hurdle is disagreement over whether to pipe the gas to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in East Timor or to an existing LNG hub in Darwin.

Ramos-Horta has previously suggested East Timor could bring in new partners like China if the deal is not made on their terms, raising concerns in Australia about growing Chinese power and influence in the pacific region.

Ramos-Horta said that East Timor had talked with a number of private and state-owned Chinese firms and that representatives of some of these had visited as part of a recent Chinese business delegation.