Business News - East Timor: Access gained to Greater Sunrise data room

Dili, Nov.9 (Lusa) – The governments of East Timor and Australia and representatives of the oil companies with franchises in the Greater Sunrise gas field, signed a deal on Wednesday to share confidential information about the Timor Sea project, sources said.

The deal came after two days of meetings in the Australian city of Brisbane between the governments of Australia and East Timor (in this case led by Xanana Gusmão) and the Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell and Osaka Gas companies.

The deal allows both sides access to the ‘data room’ that has all the joint venture’s confidential information about Greater Sunrise and that the sides can both use to defend their positions.

At the end of August East Timor and Australia initialled an agreement about the “central points” to delimit the maritime border and the legal status for the development of the Greater Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea.

The only outstanding issue has to do with how the gas is exploited and particularly whether there will be a pipeline to Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory or to the south coast of East Timor. Where the pipeline goes determines how the revenues will be divided between the two countries.

The ‘data room' has information about various matters such as reserves, prospections and technical and feasibility studies.

ASP/ADB // ADB - Agency: LUSA