Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - East Timor's president, Jose Ramos-Horta, said on Wednesday that Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - East Timor's president, Jose Ramos-Horta, said on Wednesday that Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and China could all be interested in investing in a long-delayed gas project in the waters between East Timor and Australia. The project is important for the future of the Asian country and has been put off for a long time.
Ramos-Horta mentioned them as possible investors because his country is trying to break a stalemate with Australia over how to develop the Greater Sunrise gas fields. They want to pipe the gas to East Timor instead of Darwin, which is what the project's operator, Woodside Energy Group, wants to do.
"This means that Indonesia could be a possible investor in Greater Sunrise. So what? South Korea is one of the best places to invest your money "In a speech at Canberra's National Press Club, Ramos-Horta said this.
He also said that investors from Japan and China might be interested.
He asked Australia to support a pipeline to East Timor, saying it could help his country become the next Dubai or Singapore and bring $50 billion in revenue and $50 billion in development benefits.
Ramos-Horta said, "We have a neighbour, Australia, that can make this miracle happen."
On Thursday, he is going to talk with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Greater Sunrise is made up of two fields that were found in 1974. They are thought to hold about 5.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 226 million barrels of condensate, which is a type of light crude oil that is often found with gas.
At first, a bitter dispute over the maritime boundary slowed down progress. This dispute was settled in 2018. Now, the biggest problem is that there are different opinions about whether the gas should be piped to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in East Timor or to an existing LNG hub in Darwin.
Timor's main source of income, the Bayu Undan oil and gas field, will stop producing later this year, making the country almost totally dependent on its petroleum fund, which has $18 billion right now.
Woodside and experts in the field have said for a long time that building Sunrise through East Timor would cost billions more than building it through Darwin.
Ramos-Horta said it didn't make sense to send the gas to Darwin, which would require a 500-kilometer (310-mile) pipeline, instead of East Timor, which would only need a 200-kilometer (120-mile) pipeline. He also said that operating costs in East Timor would be much lower than in Australia.
"I don't see how taking that pipeline makes business sense for the joint venture. But we're willing to talk to the government."
The Australian Financial Review got a copy of an independent study that showed the total cost of the LNG project would be $11.8 billion in Darwin and $14.1 billion in East Timor.
Ramos-Horta said he was sure Sunrise would be developed, maybe at the same time as the Abadi gas field off the coast of Indonesia.
"I'm also sure that Woodside and the other people in the joint venture will agree with us in the end," he said.
Japan's Inpex Corp, which runs the Abadi gas project, didn't want to say anything about what Ramos-Horta said.
A Woodside spokesperson said again on Wednesday that the company's main goal is for the joint venture, which includes Timor Gap, a state-owned oil company, and Osaka Gas, a Japanese gas company, to finalise a production sharing contract with the Australian and Timor governments before discussing development options.
Timor Gap, the company with the most shares in Sunrise, and Ramos-Horta both said that studies show there are no economic or technical problems with piping gas to East Timor, even though it would be hard to cross a deep ocean trench.
Ramos-suggestion Horta's that China could invest in the gas project comes at a time when Australia and its allies are worried about Beijing's growing influence in the region after it signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands.
But he downplayed the security risk that could come from China investing in a pipeline.
When asked to evaluate the situation in the Solomon Islands, he said he would tell the islands in the Pacific not to bring in regional powers that their neighbours might not like.
"No sensible Timorese leader would ever do something without thinking about how it would affect your neighbours," he said, pointing out that East Timor was in a good spot between Australia and Indonesia.
