East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta wants the Australian Government to convince the developers of the Greater Sunrise gas field to build a pipeline to East Timor.
According to Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta developing the Sunrise gas fields through a liquefied natural gas plant would cost $13 billion. While the Woodside led consortium which is developing the projects estimates that it would take $19 billion.
President Jose Ramos-Horta was speaking in Canberra Tuesday when he spoke of previous discussions with regional petroleum experts from Indonesia who had also agreed with the estimated $13 billion figure to develop an East Timor plant.
As per Woodside, Shell and ConocoPhillips, the cost for the East Timor plant and pipeline would be USD$17 billion while a floating LNG plant would cost about USD$12 billion. According to treaties between East Timor and Australia, the gas is to be shared 50-50 between the two nations, even though nearly 80 per cent of it belonged to Australia under previous agreements.
Despite all his efforts to get the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to influence the consortium to build in East Timor, Mr. Rudd said that it was a matter for the small nation and the companies to sort out.